“Growing up, I had this cat who was a rather independent creature. He stayed outside most of the time and would always sit just out of reach when inside. He’d bite or run if you tried to pet him, and he wasn’t particularly cuddly. For most of the time we had him, he was basically like a houseplant to me.
One day after an awful day at school, I went into the wood by my house to be alone and cry. After a bit, my cat comes up and starts rubbing against me and purring. We sat there awhile. After that, he started hanging around me a lot more often. Incidentally, at that time I was making waffles a lot (because it’s what I knew how to cook), and would often give him little bits of the crust which he seemed to enjoy.
A couple of years later that cat started to get ill, lost his eyes fighting raccoons and other cats. When he got bad towards the end, the last thing he would still eat were those bits of waffle. He said goodbye to me on the day he died; he came up to rub against me and let me pet him one last time, and died ten minutes later. He died outside with me, my parents, and my brother next to him.
I buried him next to the house, in the garden he loved.”
