Seventeen years ago it was -30C and I was bending over to plug in my
car when a tiny scrap of black fur quite literally fastened his little
body around my face. Nose to nose, he mewed at me, the most pathetic
little sound you can imagine. To me it said "Lady, if you don't take me
in I'm going to die."

That little scrap was starving and freezing and, no surprize, no one
came to claim him despite our ads. He stayed on. He eventually grew
into one very big black long haired cat with a sprinkling of white
hairs. We don't know what breed he was but his behaviour was like a
ragdoll and his shape and size and face structure was that of a Maine
Coon. He had the longest fluffiest tail I ever saw on a cat.We started
out calling him Ebony but it wasn't right. IN a few eeks everyone was
just calling him Schnookie.

Schnookie was a very easy going and easy to love animal. Many other
pets came and went during his tenure. He had a knack for making friends
with everyone in our house and a real love for babies, including,
strangely enough, the human kind. For a time we ran a cat rescue in our
house and 17 cats came and went, many of them kittens, over the five
year period. Schnookie could always be counted on to welcome the
newcomer and cuddle and wash a lonely kitten. He even attended the
dellivery of a dsitraught mother and appeared to calm her. Most
recently, he positively doted over my grandson and didn't seem to mind
at all when the toddler mauled him and even when the baby pulled out
his fur. For years, Schnookie decided his special duty was putting my
daughter to bed at night. When she left for university he was lost and
miserable for weeks afterward without his special charge.

For the last four years of his life he lived with my son in a two
bedroom upstairs suite with his dear friend, a big fluffy Humane
Society rescue named Trixie. He remained king of the neigbourhood, the
last of our cats who ever went and roamed outside, although towards the
end he never left the yard.

About six months it was obvious he was in decline. First, he lost his
front upper fang. Then he was no longer winning fights in his yard so
that stranger were spraying his doorstep and he stopped going outdoors.
He began losing weight and his thick glossy fur lost its luster. Last
month he slowly became irritable and withdrawn and began holding his
left ear at a funny angle and his neck out in an awkward way. This week
he started having accidents. His ability to control his bladder had
never been great, but suddenly he was spraying and dribbling
everywhere.

The vet said dear Schnookie had developed a growth, most likely a
lymphoma type cancer, in his neck with tentacles extending up into his
ear and down into his chest and back, and likely into other places and
the wetting problem was related to a direct metastasis or a way of
showing his pain.

Schnookie did not come home. He crossed the bridge today. I cried a
lot. I regret we didn't take him sooner because he suffered those last
weeks.

Cats have come and gone in my life but Schnookie was one of those
special ones, always around for all the big events of our family's
life. He grew up with our kids. He was part of our family.

Schnookie, parents unknown, predeceased by his bestest buddy Marty Cat,
survived by his beloved Trixie, and a heart broken human family who
wishes the dear ones could go on forever and never grow old. We take
comfort from the fact that we know yoou had a good long life full of
love and good food.

See you at the bridge, Schnookie. No doubt you had lots of old friends
there ahead of you and Marty was the first one to leap on top of you.