Goodbye to Rum

Goodbye to Rum

It's Mother's Day. We are meeting my daughter later for a late lunch and then go to a movie, prezzies, and good stuff. We will both probably start crying when we see each other and then my husband will tear up too. This isn't because we haven't seen each other in awhile, it's because her cat, Rum, died yesterday. He was a super cat. A purebred Seal Point Siamese, he was a beauty.

She had Rum for a bit over 13 years and I know she feels cheated that she didn't have him even longer. Of all the cats between the two of us, some 10 at different times, her Rum and Soju (his cattery sister who died a bit over 3 years ago) were by far the best cats we have ever had. This is due in part to the nature of the breed but also to the love and care that my daughter gave to her cats.

Rum was a one woman cat. He tolerated the rest of us and we always felt special when he would sit on our laps and purr. His name came from his purr which was so loud you could hear it across the room. Rum, short for Rumbler, was her protector too. After Soju died, he took it upon himself to check out everyone who came to the door. If he thought someone was up to no good, he'd growl and put them on notice. Otherwise, everyone loved him. He was funny and had great habits which included becoming a noodle whenever picked up.

Rum was a world traveler too. He started life in a cattery outside Houston. After a few months living with us, she moved the pack (her, Rum, Soju) to San Diego. From there they moved to Alameda, CA. Soju lived out her life in our house there and was the queen of the roost. After she died, our daughter and Rum joined us in Seoul, Korea for a year. Then it was back to Texas and then a drive through the states to Toronto, Canada for two years.

Rum used more than 9 lives. He has been living on borrowed time since December of last year. We almost lost him several times as it took the vets quite a while to diagnosis his problems which turned out to be diabetes. We didn't think that he would be able to make the trip back to Texas. He lost a lot of weight and was in and out of the hospital for months. Finally we got him on insulin and he was making a slow recovery. We got him back to the warm weather in Texas but it was just not to be. Poor Rum was out of time. He finally just couldn't recover from his last dip in ill health. He has been cycling up and down for awhile and finally it was too obvious he was going to continue getting weaker and weaker and worse and worse.

He was just the best cat ever. I was always a wee bit jealous that he was her cat and not mine. that's how cool he was. He has left a big gap in our lives. yea, he was just a cat but he was such a great member of the family. he will be sorely missed for a long time to come.