A death in the family – RIP, Latimer
I’ve just lost a dear friend who has brought me armloads of joy for the past 7 years. He’s been fading for the past 3 weeks and this afternoon we discovered that he had an inoperable stomach tumor – he died on the operating table and my heart broke at the same moment.
This is Latimer, who was truly a cat in a million.
Back in 2002, I decided that my cabin needed a cat. I’m not really sure anymore where that decision came from, but I was at the Mae Bachur Shelter in Whitehorse regularly for months, searching for just the right cat. One day at about the point I was going to give up, I was in the cat room and looked up to the top shelf of one of the cat apartments, and there was this guy just quietly watching me. After studying each other for a bit, I reached up and gently brought him down. He melted into my arms, and I knew that this was the cat I was looking for, partly because I firmly believe that animals pick you as much as you pick them and Latimer had clearly picked me. The description on the shelter Web site showed me that Latimer had another side beyond the cuddly one, though!
The night that we brought Latimer to his new home in Carcross, Cathy and I had gone to bed and I said “I wonder if Latimer is a bed cat.” He immediately jumped onto the bed and fell down between us like he’d been shot! Despite being abandoned not once but twice, he didn’t have a mean bone or bit of baggage in his little body.
Kayla quickly adopted Latimer as the puppy she never had, and Latimer happily accepted the role. He also cuddled with Kodi and Monty – although the boys were never completely comfortable with that, Latimer wore them down to the point where they’d at least put up with it 🙂
He was a character in many ways and I have dozens of photos of him playing, sleeping in the sink, exploring cupboards, trying suitcases on for size, watching his favourite bird feeder… Here he’s actively watching a TV documentary on wolves.
Latimer was an inside cat (cats who live outside or even who are allowed outside occasionally don’t live long in the Yukon), but he loved being outside even in harness, even in the snow!
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