Backstory

When I was 11 years old, my mother was dating someone she had been with for years who also was our landlord and had allowed us to have a pet for the first time already in our few years old cat Patches.

One night, her boyfriend shows up at the house with a small kitten he had found by a railroad track and asked for advice on what he should do as his family didn’t want the cat. At that moment, this little flea-ridden cat had bolted into my room to hide and his fate was sealed and he would be my cat for the rest of his life.

This four-month old kitten was taken to a vet and given everything possible to do well in our home with our other cat. My grandfather assisted in naming him Euro from a comic that he had sent us a year before about our next cat.

For the next 11 years, Euro would be the most unique and strange cat we ever have, or will, have again. He would announce himself when he entered a room and never liked new people, especially men. He was terrified of the outside he had been found in and never left the house.

The Hard Part

A few days ago, Euro began showing signs that something was very wrong, but we had no idea how wrong. He had thrown up and was struggling to move around. We thought he had the flu or something simple..we were very wrong.

2 days later, my mother had a vet appointment set up, but we didn’t want to wait any longer and went to a vet hospital. The news was heartbreaking. He had a urinary blockage that had spread toxins throughout his body and he was in unbearable pain and couldn’t continue going on the way he was.

Our options were either to treat him, with a very low chance of any quality of life or humanely put him to sleep. Doing anything other than one of those options would have been putting him through more misery. We decided that putting him through anything more with no good outcome would be worse and decided to let him go and get rid of his pain.

We, meaning me, my mother, and my sister, each held him before my mom returned him to me. The vet sedated him and then finally put him at peace with me holding him in my arms for the last time.

When he was at peace, the vet put him in a bag that could be buried and gave us individual prints of his paw prints to keep forever.

Closing

He was the most unique cat I’ve ever had and wouldn’t have traded any of it for the world even knowing how it had to unfortunately end. I will never forget all of his quirks that made him special to all of us or the annoying things he always did.

I’m forever grateful that I got to be there at the end and be the one to hold him one last time.