Me and JournyeFox just said goodbye to our kitty Goliath. Here is some of his life history, and a proper obituary for the boy:
January 13th, 2006, a new momma kitty, only about a year old herself, yowled in her box, and insisted on support and presence of one of her humans as she gave birth to her first litter of kittens. All told, she had one amazing first litter, as she had seven kittens. Her human for this was JournyeFox, who was not allowed to leave the box-side or the new mother Caylith would try and follow her. The home only had one other feline at the time, a grumpy older tortoiseshell kitty named Divia, who was less than pleased about all the yowling coming from Caylith's box, and actually clawed JournyeFox over it.
One by one the kittens came, most cream colored, one was a seal-point Siamese. One of the kittens was also gray, a gray tabby female, followed shortly by another gray kitty. But this one was headed into the world tail-first. And were it not for JournyeFox gently grabbing his legs, and helping him be born, this little kitten might not have survived, and been a great risk to Caylith's health as well. But since she was box-side, and helped, he came into the world just like his siblings. From the get-go we knew he was different, his nickname while we were looking for homes for all the kittens, was big-boy. Simply because he was male, and was outgrowing his litter-mates. We decided to keep him, and three of his siblings. We named him Goliath, a fitting name for a kitty bigger than his contemporaries. His sister who was also a gray tabby like him, we named Jynx. We kept the runt, and named him Radar, due to his spazzing out and his tendency to set there and listen to the voices, staring off into space lost in his own little world. And we kept another of his sisters, who we named Pixel, due to a single strand or two of fur on her nose being dark, while the rest of her is cream, looking like a burned out pixel.
Within that first year, as they all grew, Jynx contracted feline parvo, called distemper in cats. We barely had her six months, and she passed away from it, leaving us with Divia, Caylith, Goliath, Pixel, and Radar in our home. We had recently moved, and Divia was not happy with sharing her home with other cats, and always preferred being outside. She was always hissy with the other cats, and only ever purry for us. As such, she was our only indoor-outdoor kitty. Ultimately, the neighbor backed over her as Divia was getting on in years and probably never heard the car start or move, and had taken to sleeping in the wheel well. We moved into our condo the next year, and that is where Caylith and her brood of three have spent most of their life.
We had gotten Goliath and Radar neutered, but Caylith and Pixel remained unaltered, as they were indoor only kitties, this was okay. This was until a few years down the road, when Caylith suddenly looked pregnant again, but over night. We knew that couldn't be the case, and rushed her to the vet, where they determined quickly that she had a uterine infection, and a really bad one. It took emergency surgery to save her, on a weekend, but she lived to tell the tale. The next several years passed quite normally, with the usual shenanigans from the lot of them. Like one time Pixel got it in her little head that she would pounce her big brother Goliath. Bear in mind, she is a petite little kitty, only about 8lb. Goliath at the time was tipping the scales north of 20lb. She did the butt-wiggle calibration and everything, and pounced. She got her arms around him, and tried to take him down... and bounced off. She was so angry, tail flicking around, and he just looked at her as if to say 'wanna try that again squirt?'
Goliath was the emissary for the others, whenever they would deem their food bowls to be anemic in food level, he would be the one to come and demand from us, their humans, to do something about it. To this end, he would employ his weight, especially upon us in bed, where I swear the boy could get all 20+lb of his weight onto one paw, and just grind it right over my bladder. The boy knew how to get results. His whole life he was big, big paws, big bones, and big around. Placing my finger in the middle of his paw, his claws would touch past my fingertip knuckle. But he was a gentle giant.
Goliath was a momma's boy. He always preferred JournyeFox to me, and mainly would only snuggle with me if he was cold, as I run pretty warm most of the time. There were nights in bed that he'd be snuggled to her, and pointy side to me, and pushing. On several such occasions, I'd just grumble to the boy that he needed to be reminded who was top-cat in this house, and that it wasn't him. Even though Caylith is his mother, and would assert her queen status with him on occasion, he took the role of 'leader' upon himself most of the time.
January 15th 2019, Goliath did something he'd never done before, he found the most secluded spot in the house he could, and hid. He refused to eat or drink, and was very tired all of the sudden. With no idea what could cause it, we got him an appointment with the vet the next day, and took him in. His diagnosis was not good, they hospitalized him, and confirmed it was feline lymphoma. His white blood cell count, which normally never exceeds 10k, was now over 120k. This is why he was feeling so bad, and had us worried.
Over the days from then till now, it has been that fight for time. He has been such a consistent and constant kind gentle giant, we wanted to get every day, every hour, every week we could with him. The initial prognosis was that with chemotherapy, and some good old TLC, we could maybe get six months with him, as an absolute best case. Just the prospect of having to say goodbye to our boy so soon was heartbreaking, and when we got him home from the hospital, we were cautiously optimistic that he could beat the cancer into remission.
That first run of chemo dropped his numbers down to 80k, and he was feeling a little better, but still not eating more than just a few pieces of dry food, or a bite or two of wet food a day. He seemed to know the prognosis wasn't good, and became even more snugly and more insistent on being close to us than ever before. He'd sleep between our pillows in bed, and purr whenever we'd pet on him. He felt bad, that much was obvious, but he never got hissy, or tried to scratch us, or anything of the like. Our gentle giant was not long for the world, and his knowledge of that only made him more affectionate.
The vet staff at the animal hospital all commented on how much Goliath was a cool cat, each and every time we took him in. They said he only ever got hissy with them once, and that was on his first hospitalization. The second round of chemo didn't have the desired effect, and his numbers plateaued around 80k. We went ahead with a third chemotherapy treatment, and continued to try and get the boy to eat and drink. He still refused, and though his numbers dropped to 60k from the third chemotherapy treatment, which was a more targeted, slowly delivered medication, his quality of life still did not improve.
February 1st he only wanted to snuggle with JournyeFox, being very stubborn about that fact, wanting to be in her arms, and nowhere else. I had to hold him, against his will, so she could get something to eat even. He knew his time was almost up, and he wanted to spend it with her, purring and comforting her. This morning, Feb 2nd, his mind was already gone, and he never mentally woke up, though his body was still struggling to hang on. His breathing got very labored, and we knew it was time. We rushed him back to the vet, and let the boy go. The whole staff was again commenting on how good he'd been, and as we walked back, one of the techs even exclaimed 'is that Goliath?!' sad to see him go. He left an impression on them, even as short as they knew him.
We are getting him cremated, and picked out a cedar wood urn for him, to go with his paw-print that will also be a keepsake. We also have so many pictures of our thirteen year old boy. It is always hard to say goodbye to them, and we always want another hour, another day, another month with them. But in the end, he didn't suffer long, and spent his last days trying to snuggle and comfort us. He will be missed. We will carry on with loving on Caylith, Pixel, and Radar. Always to give them the same love and care we always have, and always remember our big boy Goliath, and the good thirteen years we got with him.
I'll be posting pictures here to FA, and other places like Telegram over the next day or so, another way to say goodbye.

-Leo