What I am learning about my ageing parents from my 20 year old cat

I haven’t posted here in a long, long time. Most of my attention is now devoted to writing for my professional clarinet blog, The Buzzing Reed. DavidHThomas.net

Sometimes I just want to write something non-clarinet or music oriented.

My parents are miraculously still alive. My mother is 88, and my father is 83.

Each is declining in their own special way, with moments of breakthroughs mixed with the general trend toward the end of their lives.

I also have a cat named Punker, who is 20 in September. I cannot imagine him going. He has been with me for almost half my life. I raised him as a pre-weened kitten, only one week old. His mother died of toxemia because she had another baby inside her which did not birth.

I had to bottle feed Punker with a special kitten milk. I also had to rub his tummy (to simulate the mother licking him) to stimulate his urine to go, and eventually, to encourage a bowel movement!!

I don’t want to write the whole story now, because it’s midnight, and I need to eat (dinner) and go to bed. But I’ll post more about Punker’s wonderful life in the next few weeks.

David Thomas (aka Garnet)