The last 12 hours have been gut wrenching. I was getting ready for bed around 11:30 last night and got a phone call from Tyler. He was so upset I couldn’t really tell what was wrong for a moment. Something was wrong with Schnapps. Tyler had been making himself a late night snack and heard some loud noises coming from the bedroom. He peeked his head in and saw Schnapps having some sort of seizure and went in to pet him and see what was wrong. And just like that he was dead. Poor Tyler is beside himself. I got in my car, drove over, wrapped Schnapps up and got him out of the bedroom, cleaned up and we sat down and had a drink and a cigarette. We have been here before. I know some would say it’s just a cat. They die. But it was almost like losing another part of my mom. Schnapps was my mom’s favorite animal. She was his favorite human. He was the picture of health. A panther of a cat. I saw him at lunch. Nothing out of the ordinary. Five minutes before he died, he had jumped up on the bathroom counter for a drink of water and jumped back down with no problem.

Tyler said if this is the universe trying to desensitize me to death, it isn’t working. His good friend, Chandy, wrote the sweetest Facebook post about him. I’m inserting the photo she posted, along with what she said below.

“Rest in peace to my favorite little furry drinking buddy. I’ll miss your early morning antics while I am recovering from a good night at Tyler’s and the way you intimidated the begeezus out of me. You will be greatly missed, you giant panther of love.”