Three weeks ago, the first of October, our beloved cat Bubba suddenly and unexpectedly passed away.  It’s taken me a while to have the courage to tell hardly anyone outside of immediate family, or to write this post in honor of him.  Because it’s running rather long, as I knew it would, I’ll post it in three parts (perhaps four): how we found Slugger, his time with us, and his passing …    

It was only a week or two before Christmas four years ago when I stopped into a PetSmart before an evening shift in Vernon Hills, Illinois, to pick up some special litter for one of our cats.  I made the mistake of walking by the adoption center window, and another by opening the door for a closer look at the cats inside.  I was fascinated by a spunky female kitten, and called Cheryl to ask if she wanted to come and see her.  The adoption representative happened to be there that day, and Cheryl and I had talked once or twice about possibly taking in a third cat, though not that seriously.  We'd received some Christmas cash from a family member, so I told her we could use it to adopt, as a gift to the cat we chose and to ourselves.  But I was still a bit surprised when she agreed to come after she finished nannying for the day. 

I left to get some coffee until she could make it, and met her back at the store about an hour later.  We walked into the adoption center together, but I was curious when Cheryl immediately crouched down to see a lethargic two-year-old, black-and-white male in a bottom crate.  He hadn’t moved at all when I was there, and his description seemed to paint him in a pretty inactive light, so I hadn’t paid much attention to him.  But while I was trying to introduce her to the female kitten, Cheryl asked if she could hold the male.  Sure, I said, why not, mostly grateful to have her there in the first place.  The adoption rep. took us into a nearby room, along with the male, whose name was ‘Slugger.’  She said he was a very friendly cat, even a lap cat.  And sure enough, as soon as she put him down, he grunted affably and walked over to plant himself in Cheryl’s lap.  He soaked up some attention, and then repeated the gesture by grunting again and walking over to my lap, as if making sure we each had access to him.

As much as we loved our female cats Baby and Missy, neither of them were remotely inclined to spend any time being restricted in our laps, and both were fairly selective with the time they spent close to us in general, let alone people they didn’t know.  Needless to say, Cheryl and I were beyond charmed by this lover boy who seemed as verbally expressive as he was cuddly, and all it took was seeing the huge smile on each other’s face to know we were bringing him home.  We filled out the paperwork, had him “boxed up” and put him in the car with Cheryl so I could go to work.  I was a little regretful that we couldn’t take the kitten home after all, but felt really good about our decision.  And I couldn’t wait to get home and see how Slugger did with the other two at home, the lone male of the harem.

I found out later that Cheryl’s good friends in the city had a couple of very friendly black-and-white cats who she loved spending time with, and that’s why she had gravitated to Slugger so quickly.  And she’d laughed knowing his name was so obviously a tribute to her husband’s favorite sport as well!  As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more grateful for her intuition.

(to be continued soon ...)