Catzilla. His Royal Fluffiness. Dickens the Destroyer. Best Friend. Cat Moose. Hero. Villain. Like many of us, Dickens was complex. To the members of our family he was different things at different times (as we all are to the people around us), but at the end of the day he was loved from the first moment we rescued him.

Many years ago, Andy and I were commuting to work together when someone driving the truck in front of us tossed two kittens out their car window. They rolled over one with the back wheel, the other we were able to pull off to the side and rescue. This tiny golden eyed bit of fluff, who would grow into a behemoth of a pet, instantly repaid us by climbing up underneath the dash. We were assisted in saving him this second time by a clerk at a nearby Circle K, who thankfully knew far more about how to remove a dash cover than either of us. She gave us a box, and I purchased him a can of food to eat on the way to our vet. We could hear him ferociously snorting it down as we drove.

Those two post rescue events seemed to presage the overarching themes for Dickens’ illustrious reign in our family…he would always be in some sort of danger (usually from his own choices) and was pretty much “only here for the food.” By the time Hannah was born I had already shelled out more money to save his furry hide than I have ever spent on any other pet in my entire life. Actually, more than all of them combined. He was the most loving, sweet natured of cats in those early years, but definitely expensive.

When Hannah was in third grade, Dickens became noticeably ill and we took him into the vet. The diagnosis was Diabetic Ketoacidosis, and we were told there was only a 50% chance he’d survive the week. I looked into Hannah’s eyes and I knew we were going to do everything we could to save him. He had become her source of comfort as our family worked to provide support for Tony’s emerging symptoms and the health struggles I had been fighting. Lovable, cuddly Dickens had become her hero…and I could not put a price tag on that.

Dickens indeed survived the week…and two years more. However, it was pretty clear Dickens had some complaints. That diabetic feeding regimen? Totally hated it. The needles with the insulin? A complete and total affront to cat kind everywhere. And clearly the person responsible for it all was the person who did the feeding for years and who was giving the shots…me.

Now, when a kitty registers complaints, they do not lovingly rub their faces against you and meow gently about their concerns. No, no, no. They launch into feline guerrilla warfare. I still remember the day I walked down stairs to find a little pile of poop on each of the four stairs I used to do step ups for my morning workouts. Dickens was laying off to the side, ears flattened, his half lidded eyes brazenly cocked my way enunciating his displeasure.

I had been identified as the archenemy…the person responsible for taking away the food. I would wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of him peeing right next to me. He would open the linen closet, claw down everything off the bottom two shelves and pee all over it. Piles of poop and puddles of pee were popping up all over the place. He doused the couch multiple times, finally ruining it. I was spending hours a day cleaning the evidence of his displeasure.

Dickens could match every cuddly moment ounce for ounce with sheer diabolical deeds. He noticed that I would come quickly to move him if he made noise outside of Tony’s room, because in the early days in particular every little sound would wake our little man up. So Dickens took to channeling the big bad wolf and yowling right outside Tony’s door around 2 am every morning.

I could go on describing Dickens’ most epic moments of spite- all two years of them- but I want to be sensitive to the fact that he was still so very good to Hannah, and she loved him. He had become a bit of a villain in my world, because it was adding huge amounts of stress to my already full plate. I tried to cope with this by coming up with a string of nicknames and I may have torched him (very truthfully) in a few of the reviews I wrote about products I purchased for him on Amazon. But I would have gone through every moment of it over again because he brought Hannah so much joy. She was always quick to advocate for him, explaining that he didn’t understand the feeding schedule and the treatments.

As hard as Dickens made things for me the last couple years of his life, he was always gentle with Tony, who in the early days would grab his tale. Dickens would just shoot me a long suffering look and tolerate it until I gently tugged his tail out of Tony’s hands. He was great to those who mattered most in my world.

And the last day of his life, as I again looked into Hannah’s eyes, I would have done anything to save him. He was still her hero. The special bond with pets can be a great supplemental source of comfort and companionship for a sibling of a special needs kiddo. But saving him this time was beyond all of our powers. The only thing I could do was love them both, and wait for the day she told me she was ready to bring a new kitty into our home.

* Hannah has written a special post this week discussing her feelings about Dickens, you can find it directly under this post on the home page