With this picture, I bid thee farewell, my cute little Nico. On his way to cat heaven, he'd probably try to play with the sun like with every other spherical object he found. He saw everything as a toy, no matter what it was intended for.
My cat Nico had to be put to sleep on 7th of April due to a very aggressive and fast growing type of cancer that was located below his tongue. The vet said that she'd have to remove his whole lower jaw in order to save his life. This would mean that he'd be crippled for the rest of his life and I'd have to feed him through a tube every day. He wouldn't be able to carry anything, to chew anything, to give his little love-bites.... he'd have a hard time drinking or grooming himself or others. This kind of life wouldn't be enjoyable to him, with his playful nature. It was also too late for chemo therapy and other therapies would be very hard to realize due to the location of the tumor. The decision to put him to sleep was one of the hardest in my life and I hope it was the right thing to do... To this day I wonder if I could have done something...
Nico started his life in mid May of 2016 in Salzgitter Germany as the cat of my neighbor. Said neighbor wasn't the brightest person; he frequently came to me with silly requests or stupid ideas, tried to brag about his (non-existent) technical skills and knowledge and, because he saw I got myself two cats, bought also two cats with the goal to breed them and sell kittens for profit on a regular basis. Not only did he not have any experience with cats, as he told me he only had two hamsters as a kid who died because his parent's dog ate them. He pampered the female cat (named Charlotte) with cheap little toys with which Nico was not allowed to play. They've built a scratching post from cardboard for Charlotte, but became angry when Nico was using the scratching post. Nico was often confined to the bathroom where he'd spend a long portionof the day. Nico would experience punishment for misbehaviour caused by bordom and mistreatment and when I found out that this neighbor was pushing Nico's nose into his own pee as punishment and even beating the cat, I decided it was enough. I offered him to buy the cat from him.
He accepted and so, Nico joined my family somewhere in early 2017.
Nico was such a nice and friendly cat, always gentle and careful not to use his claws when playing near my hands. He never intentionally scratched me and even in the most precerious situations he didn't hurt me. Like when his claw got stuck in the rubber seal of a window. I did everything to get his claw out without breaking it off. He screamed but did not scratch me and when he got free, he just stayed in my arms. I really thought he'd scratch me by trying to escape, but that did not happen.
He jumped on my lap almost every day and sometimes slept there for up to 5 hours in one go. When he wasn't sleeping on my lap or right next to me, he'd play with everything he could find, including my two other cats. He was always gentle to my female cat Maya and with my big Tommy, he had the most fun playing. Nico loved to tear plastic bags and toiletpaper appart. I used to secure the TP rolls with hair-bands. Once, he learned to open drawers. I woke up one morning and saw small and colorful flakes all over my bedroom. As i was investigating those strange soft pieces, I also found several rectangular rags of a dark green and rough material. It was then when I realized that he must have opened a drawer and found a bag of fresh kitchen sponges. The rough rags were those rough sides you use for scrubbing xD the sponges were now torn into tiny shreds and evenly distributed all over my bedroom.
After about a year, Nico started scratching his ears and face, severly injuring himself in the process. That's when I lost him on the way home, after visiting the vet. The transportation box fell appart and Nico ran away in panic. I did everything to find him, including the purchase of a heat-camera in order to search for him at night. It took 3 weeks to find him. Fortunately I had the idea to use olives to bait him into a cat-trap (a cage with a plate inside which, when stepped on, closes the door behind the cat). He loved green olives like catnip.
He was so happy to be home again. I really feared he'd want to go outside again, but he never did. I found him at 5 am, so when I went back to sleep, he immediately jumped into the bed and fell asleep right in front of my face on my pillow. He wanted to be as close to me as possible T_T
After that, we tackled together the problem with his scratching, which was appearently caused by food allergies. Slowly, I found out that he was allergic to gluten, beef and lamb.
almost 2 years later, he'd succumb to cancer... He almost reached the age of 4. I miss his little paws gently touching my face when he was sitting on my belly. His massages when he was ready to curl up on my arms. His purrs...
I did stream this picture, but I couldn't bare to announce it properly. I just wanted to spontaneously start the stream, so I announced it in Canime's Discord channel. I want to apologize to anyone who didn't have the opportunity to join my stream and I want to thank everyone who joined the stream and also a big thanks to Canime for allowing me to announce my stream on his channel.
The following is a list of the songs I was listening during the stream, in case anone else wants to dive into the sadness, like I did.
Arn Andersson Nights Amore - Farewell Life Arn Andersson - Annihilation Arn Andersson - Dawn Chris Haigh - Tears of Oppression Trevor DeMaere - Provenance Audiomachine - Longing Olexandr Ignatov - Sad Piano Trevor DeMaere David Eman - Narrow is the road Audiomachine - Magnetica X Position MusicRoya - Penitence Audiomachine - Supermoon DistroKid (Revolt Production Music) - Sorrows of Tomorrow Evgeny Emelyanov - Sorrow (extended version) Audiomachine - An unfinished Life Salim Daïma - And the World will never Forget Peter Roe - Living by the Sword Christian Onofreiciuc - Imagination
