RIP Wilbur

We said good-bye to Wilbur today. We knew with Timmy going that Wilbur probably wouldn't be too far behind. What Timmy had was very contagious (so yeah, Simba has it too...sigh) and Wilbur was already slowing down on his eating and drinking so we knew. Doesn't make it easier... just makes it less surprising.

We tried to make the call at the right time, and I think we did.  We made *the* appointment the day after he stopped eating. I spent his last day force feeding soggy canned cat food down his throat. You know it's bad when you can force feed a cat and not get scratched.

The kids and I said our good-byes and Robert took him in by himself as I had to work.

Wilbur was a little slow and always skitsy.  The first 2 years we barely saw him as he hid in the closet all day and would only come out at night to play chase with Timmy. After a few months he would also borrow deep under the covers - but don't move your feet or he'd get them. Once he got out and it took us three days and a borrowed live animal trap to get him back, and Timmy's supervision of course.

We put a ledge on the window sill for him in our house in Aloha because he kept trying to sit on the sill and would fall off every time he started to doze.

He LOVED that ledge and we finally got to know our cat. He TALKED so much. We would all have conversations with him - meow? meow. ME-OW?! Mow.  And he would chirp to birdies outside.

After we moved out here, he hid under the bed for about a week and then he came out of his shell so to speak. He was often in the living room laying on the back of the couch or curled up in one of the kids beds - which was new. Visitors very rarely saw him as he'd stay hidden when they were around, but he really opened up and became less shy.

He loved fresh water and was really insistent when asking for the faucet in the bathroom to be turned on for him.

His only gross cat thing was he always had hairballs and would find the best place to leave it for you to step on. I think he bathed himself and Timmy and that's why he had so much hairballs. But his purrs were the loudest, his meows sounded like actual conversations, and his sweet slightly cross-eyed face was the best.  He came as a package deal when we adopted Timmy, probably cause they knew shy kitties have a hard time being placed.  I'm so glad he did.