Pip

If you follow me on Instagram or on Facebook, you already know this. But I am heartbroken to tell you that this past Saturday, February 1, 2025, our sweet boy Pip joined his brothers and sisters in heaven.

Pip first came to live with us when he was just short of a year old. He had recovered from having his back left leg amputated, and a friend of mine - Kate Gagnon Osborn - had been fostering him. She suggested that he would be a good fit for our family. (Fun fact: about a year later, she would foster the dog that would become another member of our family, Dug!)

When Pip joined us, we had Jetsam, who had been alone for about a year after we lost two other kitties within a week of each other. They became fast friends, and we could tell Jetsam was glad to have a companion again. Pip loved Jetsam right away, and things felt more complete again. 

Pip never met someone - human or otherwise - that he didn't make friends with. We used to joke that if we brought an alligator home, he'd make it his friend. Anyone else who joined the family was immediately fine with him, even if the others might take a while.

He was our sweet boy, cuddly, purry, and playful. He was also the family narc, making sure that we knew if something wrong occurred. He loved it when people came to visit (more friends!), and loved going out in the garden for a walk around, once he realized (starting over every single year) that it was a safe place.

He had a great Christmastime this year, which made us (and him!) happy. Last October, the vet said he had lost a bit more weight than before. He wanted to do all kinds of tests to see if it might be cancer or something, but we decided that as long as Pip was happy and his usual self, we were leaving it alone. Going to the vet was one of the few things that stressed him out, even more than any of the others, and we wanted to avoid that. 

In the last few weeks, you could tell he didn't feel well. He slept more, and though everything else was pretty much the same, he wasn't his usual Pippy self. And then his back leg - the only one he had - started not working too well. 

I kept telling him that he needed to let us know when he was just too unhappy or sick to go on, because like I said, he was clearly not feeling his best. On Saturday morning, when I went downstairs to give everyone their breakfasts, he was sitting next to the heater, and he looked at me sadly and meowed even sadder. So I knew he was telling me. 

Fortunately, the vet could take us a couple of hours after we called. All the others told him goodbye, and we put him in the carrier to go to the vet, which is about a block away from our house. It was a *very* sunny day, and we talked to him and told him the sun came out for him the whole way there. 

And by the time we went to take him out of the carrier at the vet's office, he was already gone. We agreed that one of the rays of sunshine decided that it couldn't wait any longer for him to join in making the world bright and making people smile, so that's what happened on our way there. I like to tell myself it was quick and he didn't even have time to think about it, because I hate to think he was panicked in the carrier for the last seconds of his existence. 

Pip was a happy boy, and from all that we could see and tell, he had a happy life. We tried our best, and I like to think he knew that - he seemed to know that he was beloved, and he really was.

He would have turned 14 on the 14th of the month - Valentine's Day. So rather than have a little party for him, we'll do our best to celebrate that he was ours for as long as he was. Maybe by then we'll have his ashes here at home with all of us.

 

God bless you, Pip. We will love you forever, and will never be able to stop remembering how you saved our lives. I hope you were extra happy to see your Welcoming Committee in heaven - I know they were happy to see you!

Please give all of your family members some extra love today, however you can. Pip was all about love, and knowing that other people and animals were getting some extra love on his behalf would make him happy.