My Raggedy Man. He always looks more brown in pictures than he does in real life. I did not care one way or the other for animals before him. They were fine, they were cute, but I wasn’t concerned one way or the other. I loved babies, and I guess was always too anxious for animals to relax around me. They just seemed like they were too unpredictable for me to relax around them.

Then this raggedy man needed a home. He also doesn’t care too much for animals. He thinks he is a dog. He’s not to keen on being picked up, or bothered. He hates when other cats approach our screen door. He will kick me out of a chair that I am sitting on, just so he can sit on it. He will wake me in the middle of the night to follow him down to the kitchen just to watch him eat. He leaves fluff balls all over the floor. He meows when the kids aren’t home, and drags me to bed when he is tired.

My raggedy man is getting tired now, though. He can’t jump off the couch, or even on to it for that matter. His favourite space at the top of the stairs is pretty hard for him to climb to now, so he rarely bothers, and has made himself at home on the middle of my reading chair. It’s close to the ground and close to his food. He is starting to walk stiffly, and his fur is more gray than it ever was before. He still lies on the floor next to my feet all the time, but struggles to jump up when I move in a way that is new. His middle age fat has started to slip away, and his hind legs are a little more yoked than they were even five years ago. He steps over things gingerly rather than hopping. I’m glad his days of baby gates are behind him, because his flying leaps when the kids were babies would not be manageable for my raggedy man.

And now, the woman who never cared for animals is crying over the aging of the cat who thinks he’s a dog and also never cared for animals. My boy, my raggedy old man, is 16 now. My baby who is not a baby, who taught me to not just love him, but animals as a race. My Timon.

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