Remembering Torch

Torch

5-16-07 - 1-8-09

Our sweet cat, Torch, died yesterday. A kid in our neighborhood tied a shoelace tightly around his neck and then tied a short branch to the other end. We think with the intention of "taking him for a walk", unfortunately his parents weren't supervising him and when Torch finally got away he still had the string attached and when he tried to jump back over our fence to get home he got hung up and died. Finding him was devastating and disturbing but I want to remember him as he was, as our sweet cat. Here is a little bit about our kitty.

Torch was born at our house on May 16, 2007 from a sweet little stray. He was one of 6 and fought for his way in the litter. Mama Kitty, as we called her had her kittens in our window well and then later moved them into our shed inside of an old tire. From there the kittens were easily contained because they couldn't make it out of the tire but our kids were able to get to them so that they could play with them and socialize them. All the kids loved the kittens of course, they were so cute.

When the kittens were still very young and their eyes were still closed two of them got terrible infections in their eyes. Torches were especially bad. My brother was in town and with funds being low we decided (with the advice of my neighbor who used to work at a veterinarian clinic) to treat him ourselves. The poor little thing looked like a alien with his eyes so puffed up. We cleaned the gunk off of his lashed and sort broke the seal and fluid and puss just came gushing out. It was horrible! We felt so bad for him. We had some antibacterial drops to put in his eyes but I was almost afraid that he was going to be blind. But we kept treating him and thankfully he was totally cured. From then on we sort of had a bond.

We found homes for all of our other kittens and decided to keep the little orange kitten and named him Torch after the Fantastic 4 flame guy. He was always a crazy little kitten and grew into a crazy cat. He would chase after you and play hide and seek in his own little way. He would climb up our trees in like 2 seconds and then jump down and run all over the place really crazy. He would lay in my garden while I weeded and bug me for attention. Ryan built him a house/mansion to stay in to get out of the weather. He really loved that house and spent a lot of time in there, especially in the winter. He was a great cat. A really cool cat. He seemed smarter to me than most cats.

Torch will be missed and was taken from us way too soon. He death was tragic and totally unnecessary. The kids still don't realize that he is missing and thankfully did not see him when I did. Being an outside cat and being winter the kids aren't out as much and haven't noticed. When they do we think we will just tell them that he ran away.

Torchy was a sweet boy and I really loved him. I hope that I can find forgiveness for the way he died.