London

London
1997-2007

I know that my mom wrote her own blog about London, but since this marks 1 year since he passed away, I decided to write my own story about him.

I got London in June of 1997 when mom was working at Mid-Orange CF. Mom mentioned that there was a litter of kittens. There was a grey kitten in the litter, who happened to be the runt. Of I course I named him London before I ever saw him. I named him after one of my favourite writers. I nagged my mom for about 2 weeks to let me have him. The day before I left to go to flight school, we went to the prision & picked up this small, small little kitty.

London grew quickly into the largest cat that most people have ever seen up close. Once house guest remarked that London was not a house cat, but a mountain lion. He even had fangs that hung out of his mouth. It added to the intimidation factor, but the truth is London was a mush. He liked to sleep beside me or on top of me...apparently me breathing was an option for him. I always thought that it was cute that he would come wake me up when it was time for me to take the dogs out or when he deemed it time for me to get up. I think what makes me smile most when I think about him, is that when he was still small, he began to sleep on top of Hemingway's bird cage. As London grew, there was a sag in the top of the cage from his muscular mass. The bird never paid attention to him & paid no attention to the bird. When Hemingway was out of his cage & would go near London, it would cause the cat to run away. London was not much for confrontation.

London would spend the majority of his day asleep on someone's bed. When I was working overnights at ERH, I was London's bed buddy. He would come in my room, cloaked in black-out curtains & sleep with me, next to my stuffed animals.

Many people balk at the idea of having a cat who is FIV+. We never knew that he was until shortly before he passed away, but London's 10 year life proves to any naysayer that infected kitties do in fact live long & happy lives.

I visit my parents house now & still expect him to be loafing around on one of the beds. I have to constantly remind myself that he isn't there...at least not in a way that we can visually see him.