Yesterday, my family lost a very special little fluffy person in our lives that we have known for 12 years. His name was Pablo Picasso. On Chinese New Year 2002 (February 12th), Pablo arrived as a stray in our kitchen by essentially breaking in through our cat flap out of the snow and hid behind our gas cooker until we found him. He became known as our little Chinese dragon, otherwise endearingly referred to as our ‘fluffy babe’. It was the year of the horse.

Two weeks ago, we took Pablo in for a check-up with our local vets. He had quite rapidly begun to lose weight (even for a small cat) and was drinking a lot each day. He had a routine examination and we were offered a geriatric profile of his bloods to see if there were any underlying problems that might need to be addressed. We got the results that same afternoon, telling us that he was in the later stages of chronic renal failure…

…He died peacefully in the early hours of yesterday morning. It was exactly 12 years ago to the day that he found us. It is again the year of the horse. We didn’t have long to adapt or even accept his prognosis. But in that strange sort of profound symmetry I think there is a sense of harmony that allows us to be at peace with it.

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