For a week after we found out we could pick up Boo Boo’s remains from the vet, neither Kate nor I could bring ourselves to do it. However, we decided we didn’t want him to be alone at the vet, nor could we bear that thought anymore, so Kate went to pick him up, and with his footprint still wet (if you look close, you might be able to read his name, Bruce, and the date he died, 3-4-12).

We called him by many names, Bruce, Boo, Boo Boo, Boo-C, but rarely by his given name, Robert the Bruce.

No matter, by whatever name we called him, he knew he had a good home, where he had plenty of food, water, space to run, and most important, love. We loved him, we still do, and we always will. 

Perhaps his favorite place to sit when he wasn’t sitting on my lap. Kate’s father, who sadly, I watched die too when he had a heart attack Oct. 12, 2008, made this tree especially for Boo Boo.

Boo Boo loved to sit in this tree, and anywhere around it, especially in our new apartment as the afternoon sun warmed his tummy as he laid down in it. He could do this for hours at a time during the day. Emmy has yet to sit in the tree, and has only climbed to the top of it once since Boo Boo died. When she goes near the tree, she sits at the bottom of it, and stares out at the birds. 

No doubt in my heart that when Boo Boo died, he found Kate’s father in heaven and sat on his lap. After the first few days of Boo Boo’s death, we’ve been OK most of the time, but thinking about the joy he brought to our lives, and even the crazy things he’d do, just make us grieve more that he’s no longer with us, though, as our pastor said, he will always be with us in Spirit. 

Boo Boo, which if you haven’t noticed by now is the tiger cat on the right, did not like Emmy, at first, when we brought her home as a kitten in Oct. 2009. For about two weeks, he did nothing but snarl at her.

We didn’t expect that behavior, because we had never had a problem from Boo Boo, but at last, he began to get along with her better, and with her playfulness, got him to run around the house more and chase her. He seemed to enjoy that, and yeah, he still liked to exert his dominance over her, but Boo Boo and Emmy didn’t like to be apart for long. If we closed a door where one of them was, each cat would sit right by the door and reach paws underneath the crack.

Emmy sniffed around the areas where she last could smell Boo Boo’s scent (around the kitchen), but she seems to have adapted to not having him around. I would hate it if she missed him the way we do, because thinking about Boo Boo still makes my wife and I cry. 

Boo Boo liked to go outside, though we rarely let him have that privilege. On occasion, he’d slip out the front door when Kate and I weren’t paying close attention, but we never had to worry about him going far, as he hated loud noises.

Still, he loved to sniff the grass and roll around in it, and he loved to watch and listen to the birds.

No matter what house we lived in, we’d open windows for him to sit in. 

This was one of the Boo Boo’s favorite places, to climb on our bookshelf and sit.

Like most cats, I guess, he liked to sit and observe what was going on from high places.

I wish I had a photo of me holding him up high. A lot of times I’d hold him up high and let him sniff the ceiling or other high places. He seemed to enjoy that.

Other times, when he’d be evil, we’d take to calling him a rat and threaten to sacrifice him to the kitty gods and turn him into mittens.

Of course, we would never have done that, and he probably had no idea he was doing anything wrong in the human world. As we said, he was just being a Boo.