I have cried every day for the past two weeks when I realized it was time, and had to tell that to Jette. On Monday we had a vet come to the house so our boy could slip easily into that great beyond.

For seventeen years, he sat by my wife’s side, and rarely left it. For twelve, he was probably my best friend, and the person/thing I have spent the most time around in my adult life. My wife and I met on the website OKCupid in 2010 when people were still somewhat skeptical of online dating, but we hit it off. Our first date was playing Star Wars Trivial Pursuit over Skype, and in that game there are no dice, but instead a R2D2 you tap the head of and it tells you what you rolled. Thanks to my illustrious acting career in high school, I was able to hide how annoyed I was that this orange cat kept bopping the top of R2 and would not stop being distracting.

The date went well (obviously) and right before we were signing off, she said, “there’s one thing, if this is going to work out, you can’t hate cats.” So I told her I didn’t hate them, but strongly disliked them, which was a lie because I hated cats at that point. When I would go out to visit her in Chicago, I lived on a behind the counter decongestant because when I’d hang out in her apartment my cat allergy was so bad, I could barely breath. And she was in nursing school at the time, so when I came out, I’d have a lot of solo hang out with Cody. Just the two of us, slowly growing accustomed to each other.

After the wedding and he realized I wasn’t going anywhere, we really started to bond. Then some friends gave us Blinken, my sweet princess. After about a week of them not liking each other, something clicked and we came out and saw them sharing a dog bed together.

(Said dog bed in our first house)

Cody is the cat that broke me, and turned me into a cat person. He was just so sweet when he wanted to be. I’ll never forget a period of three months when, every night he’d come snuggle me and we’d fall asleep watching either Big Trouble in Little China or the JCVD classic Bloodsport. Although, there were times where he was just a jerk. For a few years, every few months he decided to serenade us with his cries in the most acoustically perfect spot. . . at 3am. He would be downstairs and it sounded like it was in your ear.

However, in 2018 we found out he was in renal failure. He started losing weight and we were just hoping he’d make it through Christmas. And here we are, lucky and blessed to have an additional two we didn’t think we’d get. I’m sad he’ll never meet the baby, but he was the baby we needed during so many hard times.

We love and we miss you.

2004 – 2022