Romeo, April 4, 2004 - December 14, 2020

Romeo has died.

Romeo, March 7, 2018

Romeo was one of three animals we inherited from a neighbor when she died in 2011. Hershey died in 2015, and Baby Boy in 2016.

Romeo, Baby Boy, Hershey

Romeo was a honey-blonde longhair. The neighbor got him in 2004 or 2005, as part of a pair - "Juliet" was a dark brown longhair. The neighbor had many, many issues. Juliet vanished sometime before the final crisis on 2011 that put the neighbor in the hospital in late August or early September and caused her to die three months later. When I began taking care of Hershey and Baby Boy in her house while she was in the hospital, I found Romeo lurking in the garden outside. I brought him into her house, and we took the three of them into our house when it was clear the neighbor would not be coming back. I soon found that Romeo's long hair was full of fully engorged ticks, which I carefully removed and destroyed.

(Later, when the cleaning crew was removing the accumulated piles of junk from the neighbor's house, they found Juliet's  mummified corpse on the back porch.)

At first Romeo was a nasty cat, rude and aggressive to the others in the house. He ran away a time or two, but always came back eventually. One day he began displaying disturbing behavior - inappropriate pooping, sometimes right in front of me.  I examined his poop and spotted long white filaments in it. Then I noticed they were moving. I knew I had to get him to the vet.

I warned the vet that Romeo might be difficult, that he had a tendency to be aggressive toward other cats. As he and the techs examined him, Romeo began to purr, the first time I had ever heard him purr. He was in ecstasy. He was the center of attention and he loved it. Now I understood. From that point on I made a point to make Romeo the "special" cat, the "featured" cat, once in a while. He was never nasty again.

Romeo's long hair was an issue. We had never had a longhair before, and even with regular brushing and annual haircuts, his hair would get knotted and matted, and he would cough up huge hairballs. I bought a hairball treatment for him that he came to see as his special treat.

The last few weeks he had been uninterested in his hairball treats. He lost a lot of weight. His matting got worse and worse, despite everything I did to brush and comb and tear and cut them out. Last week he stopped jumping up on the windowsill -  I assembled a makeshift set of steps for him. He became uninterested in food over the weekend, though he wolfed down half a can of kitten food Friday or Saturday morning. I began giving him syringes of water and a mineral supplement. Maybe it was already too late.

He was still moving around the house this morning. But when I went to check on him on my first break this afternoon, I found him dead in the bathroom. He was still warm, still soft and flexible. He had probably died just a few minutes before I checked on him.

In the morning we will take him to be cremated.

Romeo on a Snow Day, March 7, 2018

I have a bad habit of not posting about my animal friends until they have died. That's not the case today.

Romeo was one of three pets that we inherited from our next-door neighbor when she went into the hospital and never came out again back in September 2011. Romeo had been one of four cats she had owned: Tinker, Baby Boy, Romeo, and Juliet. Romeo and Juliet were longhairs, Romeo, a bright ginger, and Juliet, a deep, dark brown. Tinker, a plump Calico, had a habit of running away from home. One day he ran away and never came back. The other three cats also ran away on a regular basis, but usually came back home. Baby Boy once somehow wound up in the ceiling of our basement, years before we took him in. Juliet ran away and never came back, as far as anyone knew; when our neighbor's sister was having the house made fit for human habitation after her sister checked into the hospital, the workers found her mummified corpse amidst the junk on her back porch. Whether she came back there to die or somehow got trapped there and starved to death, I do not know.

Romeo had also run away at the time we took the neighbor to the hospital. But he didn't run far, and I frequently saw him lurking in her back yard. When we decided to take in Hershey and Baby Boy, we also brought Romeo over.

Romeo was covered with ticks, huge, tan things, maybe the size of match heads, maybe the size of corn kernels. I carefully plucked them off, one at a time, and stuck them to pieces of tape, which I then folded over to encase them while allowing for inspection. Perhaps as a consequence of this, Romeo developed a nasty case of intestinal worms.

It was while Romeo was being treated for these worms that we made an important discovery. Romeo had been a nasty, disagreeable cat after we took him in. He would often hiss and swat at the other cats whenever they tried to eat. I warned the vet about Romeo's disposition so they would not be surprised when they began treating him. Instead, Romeo started to purr as they handled him, and rolled around in near-ecstasy during the examination. Romeo wasn't being nasty; he was being insecure. He wanted to be the center of attention, not just another cat in the house.

Lately, Romeo has been showing signs of wanting to try to get out of the house. This concerns us, mainly because a desire to run off and hide comes upon some animals when they are nearing death. Romeo is up in age, sixteen or older. He shows no signs of illness, but cats are good at hiding these things.

Today, I found Romeo gazing out the front window at the falling snow. I grabbed my camera and snapped off a few photos. Even though the snowstorm didn't live up to the dire predictions locally, it at least made a pretty backdrop for these photos on a Snow Day.