Hairy Pawter, 2019-2026

This morning, we got a call from the vet that nobody wants to get. Petra’s sweet cat, Hairy Pawter, was having a surgery to clean an abscess. As the vet was finishing up and closing the wound, Hairy’s heart stopped. This was a shock—he’s had surgery before and was fine. The vet thought the whole thing would be routine. But he’s always been a medically complex cat, and there was probably more going on than we knew.

The vet gave us the choice of having him cremated. We let Petra decide. She wanted to see him and hold him, so we brought him home and started digging, right next to where we put Lyra to rest in the garden. The kids held him and petted his fur until the last moment.

Petra almost put his toy hedgehog in the ground with him, but I asked her if she might want to hold on to it, to remember him by.

We’re all devastated. It is so sudden. He was almost seven.

We’re remembering Hairy in all his loveliness.