This is Garrett Murray's Maniacal Rage

In 1992, our family cat (who my sister had been allowed to name Catwoman) gave birth to a litter of five kittens. We gave four of them away, but I was allowed to keep my favorite: A black-and-white-spotted male cat I named—quite ingeniously—Spot.

Aside from Spot’s mother Catwoman, who, after giving birth, turned into quite the little jerk, we had a sheltie collie dog named Augie and so Spot spent most of his kitten age playing with the family dog. He would climb on Augie’s back and ride her around the house, and began to pick up dog behaviors like licking faces and standing up with his front paws on your leg, begging for attention.

When we moved to New Jersey in 1997, we left our dog behind with a family friend but we took Spot along for the adventure (quick aside: We had to give Spot children’s cough syrup to keep him calm on the plane and just before we left for the airport we had to chase him around the house for 45 minutes while he foamed at the mouth trying to spit the syrup back out). When I moved out for college in 1999 I left Spot with my mother where he lived from then on.

Over the last year or so Spot had been getting thinner and weaker and, while he still meowed at you when you walked by and enjoyed being petted, he looked exhausted and worn out. Earlier this year one of my mom’s other cats, Gary, died relatively suddenly. It was an extremely rough time for my mother and when my sister and I went to her house that night, while everyone was in the kitchen, I walked over to Spot and said, “Do me a favor, buddy, and stick it out for a little while longer. Let her get over Gary first, okay?” Spot seemed to take this request to heart. A few months later my mother adopted a puppy and had finally gotten used to Gary being gone.

Last night my parents called me to let me know Spot had died. He was 17.

We grew up with Spot. He was a member of the family. We brought him across the country with us, we moved him into many different homes. While his last year wasn’t as energetic as the previous 16, he didn’t suffer and he lived a long life. I’m sad he’s gone, but it won’t really hit me until the next time I visit my parents and walk into a house that, for the first time in 17 years, Spot won’t inhabit.