3. Boy Left

Nothing I can say to convince anyone will be enough to prove that my precious Boy knew my fate already.

We got up that Monday, the Monday after the biopsies and just like every other day we went about our morning like every other, barely even noticing him.

It wasn't until about 1.30 that afternoon as Paul prepared to go up to his office and start work, after collecting a rather over fragrant deposit in his litter tray, we noticed Boy sitting in the doorway, not smugly as we first jested, but dazed and salivating profusely.

Over the next hour or so after realising I didn't have time to find the cat basket, get him in the cat basket, get him in the car, drive to a vets, even if one would take me, and knowing my darling Boy might end up dying terrified in a cat basket, whilst I drove madly to kill him in a strange room full of alien smells and noises, surrounded by strangers, I chose to lay down on the cold kitchen floor where by now he'd collapsed, hold his head in my hands, stare into his eyes, those deep puddles of unconditional love that had been my only source of comfort so many times over the past few years, and I watched the love of my life die.

Boy had arrived some 13 years earlier. A leggy teenager of a cat. Discovered by Paul in a busy staff car park in the centre of Milton Keynes. Lured into Paul's car with the promise of a warm blanket and a bowl of fresh whiskas he had hitched a ride home and became the best cat we never wanted.

I often used to lay looking into his purring face, feeling his claws endlessly pad my hair, arm, chest with kneading movements that would put the best artisan baker to shame. It was a love that engulfed me, was never faltering, unconditional. Puuurrrfect!

On more than one occasion I used to ask him 'who are you?' convinced he was made from people I'd lost, and they were all wrapped up in him, come from no where, as if by magic, to guard me, take care of me, hear my silent tears when they went unheard by the rest of the world and wipe them dry with soft black and white fur. Soothed with the love of a thousand purrs. But now, on a normal Monday, just like that, I was laying on a floor feeling his paws paddle weakly against my hands for the last time, and staring into his eyes, I saw it, he knew, he was going ahead for me. Making it less complicated, one less thing to have to try and cling to when I had no strength left. And in that moment as I felt his heart stop beating for me, I sobbed out the words ' go, I'll be there soon, Mummy loves you'