Kryten hadn’t been well for a long time: He’d gotten really wobbly on his hind legs, he was bony with a swollen belly, he stopped hunting and playing and grooming. We were giving him baths instead, which he didn’t like. So I didn’t expect him to come back from the vet.
I had them do a blood test first, which showed jaundice and liver levels off the charts. His kidneys weren’t doing great. An ultrasound revealed lesions on his liver, a sign of cancer. I took a minute to say good-bye and stroked him while the vet injected a lethal medicine. I didn’t think he should be alone. He was gone very quickly.
Then it was some time before I could compose myself again. I thought I would be okay but it was kind of hard. For a while, I felt guilty at failing him. Did I give up too easily? Could we have taken better care of him? Did he feel betrayed that I put him down? But he was clearly suffering.
He was kind of a strange cat. He didn’t get along with other cats (besides Albus) well. Despite being indoors 90 percent of the time, he got in serious fights several times. He loved to sleep in windows. He had incredibly long, silky fur, the softest I’ve ever seen, and super sharp claws. He didn’t like to cuddle or be too close, but he would follow you from room to room to be near you. If I wasn’t feeling well, he would come close and cuddle, and only then. He liked to sleep at the foot of the bed but liked to get up at 4 a.m. At this point, he would bat my face. If I pulled the blankets over my head, he would dig a claw into the blanket and pull it away. If that didn’t work, he would deliberately sharpen his claws on the box spring, knowing I wouldn’t tolerate that. If he could see the bottom of his food bowl, he thought he was starving. He was a decent hunter and would catch mice and birds outdoors and flies and moths indoors.
He could be a stinker, but he was a big part of our lives.
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| enjoying catnip |
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| a favorite spot |
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| another favorite spot |
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| Kryten and Albus often napped together |
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| as a new kitten; top right |
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