Simon And Ezra

Pop Goes The World

Last week I had to make the decision no pet owner ever wants to make.

It appeared that my elderly orange tabby Simon had another urinary tract infection. As a diabetic cat, he was prone to them and he was exhibiting all the signs. It was a busy day for the animal hospital, but they were able to work him into their schedule.

An hour after dropping him off, the doctor called to let me know that we were dealing with something more serious than a UTI. There were things that the doctors could do to treat Simon, but the treatment was going to be expensive and given Simon’s age and the fact that he not only had diabetes but also the beginning stages of kidney failure, the procedure could put too much stress on his little body.

This was the last thing I expected to hear. I didn’t get emotional until I called my partner Roma and let her know what was going on. I couldn’t believe I was even saying the words, “The doctor recommends putting him down.” Not my sweet little orange boy. He was my buddy.

I adopted Simon and his brother Ezra in June 2009 from Cats Unlimited. I had already decided that I wanted the little orange tabby I had seen in the paper (he was called Stanley then), but when my mother and I went to the pet store to pick him up, a little gray kitten named Sterling caught my mom’s eye. We ended up adopting both of them. My mother couldn’t decide at first between Asa or Ezra for the gray kitty but ultimately settled on the latter.

Mom was not used to the antics of two active 10-week-old kittens and I think in the beginning they stressed her out. When I got home from work, she would give me a full report regarding what they’d been up to. Back then Simon was the acrobat of the duo and loved to climb to the top of mom’s closet door. Both kittens found mom’s yarn for her crochet projects irresistible so she had to put away her afghans in progress until the makings weren’t such a temptation for the juvenile felines anymore.

I will never forget the day I came home and I heard my mother say very quietly, “Joann, you have to see this.” Mom was sitting in the den with both kittens sound asleep in her lap.

Unfortunately it wasn’t long after Simon and Ezra came into our lives that my mother began to develop health issues, starting with a diagnosis of kidney failure and then bladder cancer. After a debilitating stroke in February 2010, Mom was put in a long-term health care facility and I was left home alone with the kittens.

The kittens grew very quickly, but did not grow out of their kittenish ways. Ezra loved to entertain the trick-or-treaters by scaling the front door and hanging by his claws when he reached the top. He so disliked the loud box fan in the den that he learned how to unplug it. Both cats learned how to step on the on/ off switch of the power strip that my computer was plugged into and would turn it off when they felt they were being ignored.

When I moved from my childhood home in 2016, Ezra made it known that it was a complete inconvenience when I grabbed him and put him into the pet carrier. But his brother Simon made no protest and walked right into the carrier like he was ready for the next adventure.

Simon and Ezra were always very close and I feared that when one predeceased the other, the one left behind would grieve to death. In October of last year Ezra became ill and had to be put down. I waited for signs that Simon was missing his brother, but he seemed fine.

Of all the cats I’ve had in my life, Simon seemed especially attached to me. In the evenings when I was relaxing on the sofa in the living room, he would always get up on my chest and lie down, putting his crossed paws over my heart. Whenever I stepped out on the porch, he’d sit at the door and meow because he didn’t like that there was a pane of glass between us. Roma said that when he looked at me, little cartoon hearts filled his eyes.

It’s hard to believe that Simon’s been gone for over a week now. For the first couple days after his passing, I sat and cried and tried to sleep as much as I could; if I sleep I might dream of him, I told myself. There are reminders of him everywhere. He loved to sleep on the sofa in my room and the sofa is covered in his orange fur. In the sunshine the little individual hairs look like tiny flames. The other day I found the rat toy that he and his brother loved to play with when they were kittens. It was bigger than both of them at one time.

There are still four cats in the house. Two of them – Sammi and Chloe – are part of the original eight that Roma and I had at the beginning of our relationship and two were more recently adopted – Freddie in November 2021 and Annie Evelyn in February 2022.

Freddie is the only man of the house now and I swear that Simon must have asked him to look after me because he has been very attentive and affectionate this past week. He follows me to my room at night and curls up where Simon used to sleep. He cuddles close to me while I sleep. He makes me laugh when he reclines next to his food bowl and scoops the food into his mouth like a Roman nobleman.

In time there might be room in the house and in my heart for another orange boy or orange girl and an accompanying sibling. Right now I’m content with the four we have as my heart heals.

When it’s my time to go, I hope that I hear my mother whispering, “Joann, you’ve got to see this,” and I follow the bright light until I see her sitting with Simon and Ezra cuddled up together in her lap.