Farewell, my friend

Today is one of the hardest days of my life. Today I said goodbye to one of my best friends. Today is the day that Owen, the Wonder Cat, Stelle left this world.

Owen has been in my life since the fall of 2000. He arrived in dramatic fashion - being rescued by Matt on the side of the Palmetto Expressway during rush hour. No doubt that if Matt hadn't rescued him, he wouldn't have survived. Who would abandon a sweet little kitten on such a busy expressway????????

Matt couldn't take care of him at that point because he was leaving town the next morning. So he called me up and asked me to watch the kitten for a few days. I obliged, but had to keep it a secret from my family - they would have flipped at the idea of ANOTHER animal in the house.

Here is baby Owen - who at the time was simply referred to as "the Kitten" - because I subscribe to the theory that if you name it, you keep it.

After two weeks, I had kept the kitten a secret from most people and Matt had returned. I had been laboring under the delusion that Matt would be keeping the kitten, but he informed me that he would be trying to find a home for him. That was it. He became my kitten and he became Owen Stelle. He earned his name by being a little odd ball cat. At the time I was working at a school for special needs students and his name was in the title. So Owen entered the family and came out of hiding.

His first obstacle was convincing my father that the household needed another pet. He had already won over my mom and brother, but my father was the hold out. Owen solved that problem by curling up in my dad's lap and purring. For the rest of his life, he loved sitting in my dad's lap.

Owen fit right in with the other pets. He loved dogs. He didn't understand that they were different species. He would love to curl up with Sasha.

He also believed that he was the center of the universe (as any proper cat should believe). When our friends Rick and Angie brought their baby daughter over, he would sit in her car seat. Anytime their pack and play was set up, he was quite happy to climb into this special "living room bed".

Owen grew up to be a good size kitty. He was 36 inches from the tip of his tail to his nose. At his heaviest, he was about 24 pounds. Not an itty bitty kitty!!!!!!!

He loved to play and play hard. Catching the bird was one of his favorite things, so was killing a variety of stuffed animals. Especially bunnies.

As our lives changed and grew, he was with us when Matt and I married. He saw new kitties enter his life and he traveled with us to Jacksonville, Clermont, and finally Minneola. He grew to love these new sisters in his own Owen way.

Through it all,  he kept his great personality. He never met a stranger, everyone was his friend. As his health took a new turn, we learned to deal with the diabetes in stride. He didn't fight his treatments or the vet - in fact, when he visited his vet in Jacksonville he earned a place of distinction. I'll never forget the day I came to pick him up after an all day treatment and found him not in a cage in the cat kennel area, but sitting on the counter of the registration desk. Apparently he needed to be with his people. In future visits, he actually hung out in the dog kennel area because the cat boxes were just too small for him. It was quite common to see a German Shepherd, Labrador, Owen....

He also amassed a collection of toys. Everyone took turns visiting him and playing with him throughout the day. Every where he went, people loved him. One of the best compliments I got about him was that dog people loved him. He was just a chill and fun cat.

Some of my favorite Owen silly pictures - he had a thing for the washer and dyer.

One of his greatest loves was outside time. When we moved to Central Florida, he finally got a safe, screened in patio. When we bought our house, we didn't even consider places that didn't have a safe outdoor space for him. How many cats can say that? 

When we first moved into our rental and he discovered that he could be safely outside.

 He could be very silly sometimes....

But ultimately, he has been my best friend. I will forever love him and forever miss him. I'm so thankful that he was in my life, but I would give nearly everything I have to have him back here.