Missing Our Hunter

Many of you are already aware that we lost our cat Hunter over the weekend.  He was twelve years old, and had been with us 11 of those years.  Although he had been "slowing down" in activity over the past year or so, there was nothing we had expected, and also nothing we could have done differently to save him. All of us except for Nathan and Molly were downstairs with him when it happened.  We heard a loud noise, and noticed Hunter had fallen from the table and landed on his side (not his feet as they often do).  His back leg was spasming, and my first impression was he had broken it.  Then I realized he was having some sort of seizure, which only lasted a few seconds.  His little heart raced for a bit, he took a few more breaths and was gone within minutes.  The vet mentioned to bring him in to look over to see if they could diagnose what happened, and they did a brief visual autopsy (no lab work).  It revealed what we expected, a massive coronary event (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM) or possibly a blood clot leading to a stroke.  The only other abnormality was some scar tissue in the kidneys which there wasn't much explanation for.

Of our three cats, Hunter was the most affectionate, and the one with the biggest bond with Nathan, so that makes this very hard on all of us.  It's also sad that Ginny will never really know the cat she called "Shutya" or who Nathan called "The Best Cat in the World" and "His Best Friend."  I think the one thing Hunter taught us that we were supposed to learn is to not just love, but to love aggressively.   That's what he was best known for.  You didn't know Hunter without knowing you were loved back, in a major way.  We will miss his constant meowing, giant clumps of hair in random places, waking up to a raw nose from Hunter kisses, and especially the fact that you rarely had an empty lap here at this house.  If Nathan or Ginny wasn't in it, Hunter was.

Life will go on here with Peepers and Molly, or Pee and Molz, as they are better known.  Pee has been searching for Hunter's scent I think, as I've seen him smelling around the place where he died.  They are both affectionate in their own way, but there's a void here that I'm sure they'll even notice soon.

We'll really miss our "Hutter."