True Story: The House Cat That Wasn't, Part Two

This is a continuation of Part One:

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Many years passed and then George became ill. Grace took him in for numerous tests and when the test results were in, the doctors gave George and Grace the worse news imaginable; George had lung cancer. It was inoperable and had already spread. He was dying.

Tiger seemed to know it and stayed by his side when George got home. George was allowed to go home since there was nothing that could be done for him at the hospital. He started to waste away, but Tiger was always with him. Then Tiger suddenly couldn’t get up on George’s bed anymore. Grace took Tiger to the same country vet Tiger had gone to as a kitten. The tests gave more unimaginably bad news. Tiger had inoperable rectal cancer. There was nothing the vet could do for him.

Grace started gently putting Tiger on the bed next to George and putting him down when he needed to use the kitty box, even feeding him on the bed. Over and over, she did that, knowing that in his more lucid moments, George took comfort by having Tiger next to him, and Tiger obviously felt the same about being next to George. Grace refused to even consider euthanizing Tiger because he and George were linked in an almost unfathomable way.

One very, very sad day, Grace went in to see if Tiger needed off the bed to use the bathroom. The loving and loyal animal had passed away, there beside George. Despite her tears, Grace knew that it was a sign that George didn’t have much time left. She held George while she could and was there when he took his last breath. Tiger had preceded George in death by only a matter of a few hours, companions even at the end.

That isn’t the end of the story, though. You see, as I’ve mentioned, there were a lot of stray cats in the town and most of them weren’t fixed. Though Tiger never left the yard, though he very easily could have, quite a few ‘girlfriends’ came to visit him. I haven’t the slightest doubt that many of the cats that are there today are distant offspring of Tiger’s.

Still, Tiger will always be lovingly remembered as the house cat that wasn’t one. He might have had a mixed heritage, but he was a bobcat, through and through. He was also a tremendously faithful and loving companion to George for the final years of his life.

Though the pictures in both parts of this story are of bobcats, they are nearly identical to what Tiger looked like.