Good old Merlin — he may have been the best cat we have ever loved
(EDITOR'S NOTE: My wife, Shirley, recently wrote this combined memoir, tribute to our wonderful old cat, Merlin. She asked me to share it with all of you. I thought it would be fitting to make this the first content post since our return from the webhost server crash. Enjoy:)
Merlin was 8 years old when he came to us. He was a large black cat, part Siamese. He came complete with litter box, dish, brush, prescription tranquilizers and a reputation of a cat with attitude. He quickly lived up to his reputation.
For the first few days we scarcely saw him, but as he became accustomed to his new surroundings he became more visible and eventually made friends with us. However, he had apparently never been around children. Our two children were young (daughter 8; son 10) and intimidated by this black creature that stood in doorways and hissed at them.
Finally we suggested to our son that he might try hissing back. So, the next time it happened he bent down and hissed at the cat. It worked and they developed a close friendship. The boy and his cat played tag, explored, climbed trees and soaked up the sun together.
When we took Merlin to the vet for shots the first time they expected from past experience to need several people to hold him down, but they weren't needed. We never needed those tranquilizers either. Merlin had learned to share our love and to behave around strangers.
Merlin graced our lives for many years. He grew up with our two children and was a wonderful part of their lives. Merline lived to the age of 21, and it was sad to see him leave. (To this day, our son lovingly insists that all the neighborhood cats show up in our backyard from time to time to roam around and stop by his grave to pay tribute to Merlin the Great!)
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