Farewell, Simon

For my 16th birthday, instead of a caR, I got a caT. This was almost a bigger deal in my family because we never had a pet growing up. It only took a decade and a half of pressure for my parents to finally cave. I vividly remember Brian driving Britt and me to Middleburgh to pick up a kitten I found out about in the newspaper. He was the last remaining of a litter that had been found abandoned on the side of the road in November. He was dirty and, as we would find out later, had fleas and ear mites, as well as a host of other issues. However, he was cute and tiny and had beautiful, perfectly symmetrical white markings on his face, tummy and paws. I rode home cuddling him on my lap, but as soon as we entered the house he ran and hid under the china cabinet for much of the evening. My mother had very specific rules for what the cat (he wouldn't have a name for a few weeks until I watched the movie With Honors and liked the name of Joe Pesci's character) was NOT allowed to do: get up on the furniture, go upstairs, etc. I went upstairs to bed, and it didn't take Simon long to find me. He curled up on my pillow and purred too loudly for me to go to sleep. However, I feigned sleep when my father spied him on my bed and asked my mother what to do about it. They brought him downstairs and not long after he was right back up in my bed. I don't recall how that night ended, but it wasn't long until Simon spent all his nights upstairs and lounged on the living room furniture. He quickly found his way into my parents' hearts and was not just my cat. Although it had been agreed that I would use my babysitting money to pay for vet bills, my offer to reimburse my father after the first office visit was declined. And so it began. Paths were shoveled in the snow for Simon, he dined on lobster and tuna, drank his water out of bathroom sinks, traveled to Hershey Park, Maryland, Maine and probably many other places, and became a reliable lap cat during nightly television viewing. My sister even coined the term "Outdoor Simon Freshness" to describe how he smelled after being outside all day long. Simon broke the pet-barrier in the Callahan household; one cat led to two, and then to three. Once Caitlin and I left for college, Simon spent his nights curled up at the foot of my parents bed, and that is where he passed away. He lived a good, long life, and was truly loved and will be greatly missed.