Goodbye Schrodinger...

My 17-year companion, Schrodinger the cat, died last night. We all knew this day would come - 17 years is a long life for a cat - but it still hurts to say goodbye.

Schrodinger came into my life 17 years ago when a tiny kitten showed up on my doorstep one day. He was weak, starving, dehydrated, and limping from a broken leg, and he had an infected gash on the back of his head. I took him to the vet, who told me he probably wouldn't live through the night. He was about 3 months old at the time. The doctor said it was pointless to try to save him, and that he should be euthanized, but when I looked in those little green eyes I just couldn't do it. I asked the doctor if there was anything he could do, no matter how pointless it seemed. He said he could try some IV fluids and nutrition, and some antibiotics for the infection. But it would be expensive, he said, and it would be silly to spend that kind of money on a feral kitten that probably wouldn't live anyway.

But there was something about this kitten that grabbed at my heart. To this day I'm still not sure what it was, but someting told me I had to try to save this little guy. So I told the doctor to start the IV fluids and do what he could. To help defray some of the cost, I took him home that night instead of paying for an overnight stay in the animal hospital. I put him in a cardboard box and wrapped him up in a blanket. Before I went to bed, I looked at him in the box and he looked back at me. For some silly reason, seeing this cat in a box made me think of Schrodinger's Cat, which refers to a well-known (at least among science geeks like me) scientific paper written by physicist Erwin Schrodinger in 1935. So I decided to name him Schrodinger. I figured he would either be dead or alive in the morning, so the name seemed appropriate (if you don't know what I mean by that, click this link and you can read all about Schrodinger's Cat).

Needless to say, he survived, and he grew up into the sweetest and most loving cat I've ever known. The Schrodinger name stuck, although sometimes I just called him Erwin because it's easier to say. When Laura was little, she couldn't pronounce Schrodinger or Erwin, so she just called him "Cat". That name kind of stuck with him too, so sometimes we just called him "Cat". People always give me a weird look when I tell them I have a cat named Cat, so I just tell them it's easier to pronounce than Schrodinger. Then they give me an even weirder look.

We always thought he was somewhat defective, but we loved him anyway. Cats are supposed to chase mice. We have mice. Schrodinger didn't chase them. He would lie on the floor with one eye open and watch a mouse run out from under the kitchen sink, across the floor six inches from his nose, and into a hole in the baseboard on the other side of the room. I think he thought the mice were part of the family. He also had no fear of dogs. Out in the back yard, the dog would run at him full speed, barking like a fool, and Schrodinger would sit there looking at him like "WTF is wrong with you?" Then the dog would skid to a stop, look at me as if to ask "what's up with this cat? Why isn't he running?", then wander off with his tail between his legs.

He always seemed to know when someone was sick, or sad, or lonely, and he would try to keep them company. Whenever one of the girls stayed home sick from school, he would lie in bed with them all day long. When Jill was dying, he spent almost every day curled up by her side. When Katie was grieving and adjusting to her new home here, Schrodinger was in her bed every night, curled up with his nose right next to hers. It comforted her to have a furry companion, and I think he knew that somehow. I think he could sense that she was sad, and that his presence made a difference.

Whenever I would sit in my favorite chair to read a book, he would jump into my lap and curl up and purr himself to sleep while I read. And if I sat in that chair with my laptop, he would jump onto my lap anyway and try to lay on the keyboard. That was his spot, and he wasn't about to let a computer take his place.

He was a wonderful and loving companion, and a dear furry friend. Rest in peace, little buddy. We'll miss you.