3月21日
Farewell ZipperCat. Rest in peace.
My heart is filled with sorrow tonight. A dear friend fell victim tonight to a speeding car. I was back at the old house packing up crates for moving when my wife called to tell me that she and the boys came upon the still warm body of our beloved cat Zipper in the road outside our new house. She had a presentation earlier in the evening and the boys had gone to help her while I was moving furniture. I closed up and headed home - a nearly two hour journey due to an accident on the viaduct and a long ferry wait.
I made it home after 11pm and the family were all curled up in bed. The boys were asleep, my wife still waiting up. She filled me in on the details and how everyone was doing. My eldest, who had picked Zipper out from a friend who runs a rescue colony, was distraught. I'm happy he got to hold his cat for awhile to say goodbye. Our youngest was sad too but a little perplexed I don't know he understands yet that Zipper won't wake up.
I am left with a hole much larger than you would think an eight pound cat could leave behind. Even as a kitten Zipper was an exceptional cat. Fully a member of the family from the first, he prefered sleeping with each member of the family every night and he would make the rounds - putting our eldest to bed and then tucking himself in behind my knees later in the evening. Zipper was amazingly trusting for a rescue cat - he would roll on his back to have his belly or chin scratched and would wrestle with my feet in the kitchen when I cooked or did dishes. When my wife was pregnant with our youngest, Zipper napped on her every day to keep her company and he continued the tradition with the baby nearly every afternoon for the past two years. Zipper and I would frequently box with him holding a place of advantage from the upper bunk and he would let me know his food dish was empty by stretching himself to his full length up my leg or with the loudest meow in the world.
I'll miss Zipper's head-bonk greetings, slow-blink kitty kisses, playing happy paws and purring while he's scratched.
Goodbye my friend.
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