Today Tsuki-san, my cat, died. He was only two years old. Someone ran him over with their car.

Tsuki-san is Japanese for Mr.Moon. My brother rescued Tsuki-san from the dumpster when he was a few days old, back in April 2005. Tsuki was so tiny and so cold when I got him, his umbilical cord had not fallen out yet and his eyes were still shut.

I fed him and I took care of him. I would often wake up in the night to change his warm water bottles. And I remember how happy I was when he opened his little eyes for the first time. Of course then I had to make sure they didn’t get clogged and a daily routine of dabbing them with moist and warm cotton pads was followed for some time.

Tsuki-san used to sleep next to me during my many siestas. Most of the time it was he who did the sleeping because I would stay up for fear I might move or turn and annoy him. He looked so peaceful when he was asleep. I will miss that.

He was very playful and had an abnormally long tail which was his favorite toy. He never really appreciated catnip or his black necklace/collar, much less the bell on it. He also liked playing with paper balls, and he never bit a child pulling him from the tail. His character was very distinct from all my previous cats; I loved him the most.

Tsuki liked to climb into my humungous closet and to play with the bags on the closet floor and with whatever items of clothing he could find dangling. There was this one time when he fell asleep inside the closet and was locked in until the following morning. I don’t think he tried to get into my closet after that.

When he got bigger and taller (he was a very tall cat), I could no longer give him baths on my own. He particularly detested the bathroom for this reason and he could tell that he was going to be wetted, shampooed, and rubbed whenever my brother and I gave him that “look.” He would then avoid us, but we would get him anyway.

I think Tsuki-san was probably the dirtiest cat I ever had. He really could not care less about his personal hygiene unless it was mating season (and I make no guesses in this field). He was specifically filthy in the winter and I would not clean him for fear he might catch a cold.

Around September 2006, Tsuki got himself a girlfriend. This was a smaller female cat who followed him everywhere he went and even shared his food. I had doubts about the nature of their relationship but I later discovered it was entirely platonic – Tsuki may have been a bad boy, but he was no pedophile.

My bonding with Tsuki-san was the highlight of any day during the past two years. I miss him terribly and I am deeply saddened by his premature death. I am not sure if there is a cat paradise somewhere in the heavens, but I know Tsuki would probably not want to go there. He would want to spend eternity sleeping on my red couch or stealing food from mom’s pots. That’s my boy.

Tsuki-san is now remembered vividly in the following posts:

Chicken skin

And now we feast

Lazy cat who has no keys

Untitled

Cute little monstress

Oddly enough

Feline related entry: Fall from Grace

Feline related entry: Viva Tsuki-san

Requiescant in pace, beloved friend.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 14th, 2007 at 3:48 pm and is filed under Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.