My mom informed me tonight that my cat of almost 20 years, Kenoki, died two weeks ago. I'm not sure why she waited to tell me other than the usual lack of family communication. I had been visiting weekly or bi-weekly with the exception of that week because of my wife's and my anniversary, so I would have been there that day had I been following the usual schedule.
For whatever reason, I can't remember the exact details and timeline, but I believe we took him in sometime in late 1999 (my mom says around August) when he was still a kitten, which means he was coming up on his 20th birthday. My family was always a "dog" family that would *never* own a cat, but Kenoki changed our minds.
I know everyone says this about his cat, and it's usually BS, but Kenoki was a one of a kind cat who seemed to understand English to some extent, or at least tone and body language. The way he responded and interacted with people seemed to indicate such. In any event, he was an intelligent cat with hunting prowess. We used to hear repeated banging on the front door, only to find a dead mouse with its head ripped off or heart eaten out. One time, he even caught a squirrel by the neck that was almost as big as he was. It drew our attention because the squirrel was screeching so loudly we could hear it inside as Kenoki just walked around trying to figure out what to do with it. I had to grab him and force him to let the squirrel go. There was also the occasional puff of feathers with no bird to be found. He would get into fights with other cats as well. He permanently lost a few bits of flesh from the edges of his ears and once had a cut across his face from cat fights. For a long time, his rivals were a larger white cat across the street that would sometimes mooch food off the front porch (this nemesis was referred to as "Whitey") and another larger black cat (known as "Tommy cat") (Edit: this was actually a tabby cat, I forgot). I'm not sure whatever happened to them, but Kenoki always survived (not to imply he killed them. They mostly just had stare downs).
He's the only cat I've known of to go for walks with his owners; when I walked or ran in the neighborhood, he would sometimes trot beside me for maybe a quarter mile without a leash. Another testament to his intelligence is that he never marked anything (unless he accidentally got trapped in a room for too long and couldn't hold it) or needed any potty training. He figured out on his own to pee in the bathtub if the litter box was full; although, most of the time, he'd just do his business outside. One of the funniest moments was when I was in my backyard with the dogs, and he hopped the fence. The dogs didn't notice him just long enough for him to get a few feet into the yard, and then they sprinted towards him and he sprinted back towards the fence and frantically sprung over it: instant regret.
There's a lot I could say about him, but it won't mean much to anyone else. I saw his personality (cat-ality?) change over time from being a kitten to becoming an old man (cat).
In the last two years or so, his fur had become uneven and extra oily (his coat was never great, but it was much worse lately), and he was sneezing a lot (not too long ago he sneezed a big ol' string of snot that I've never seen come out of a cat, requiring a tissue, lol). Due to his age and the fact that he wasn't getting along with the other cats supposedly (although he never had), my mom had confined him to a back room of the house for privacy and to have his own litter box, and she didn't want him to go outside anymore. It was depressing to see him like that, but at least I made the effort to visit with him for a few minutes one last time a month or two ago. According to my mom, she found him alive but barely able to move, and, when she offered him water, he didn't drink it, which is usually a sign of imminent death. He died a few hours later.
Sorry for the long post.
RIP Kenoki
1999-2019
Here are a couple photos of him circa 2006 around age 7.
