A Few Thoughts on Life, Death, and Politics
Derek Hunter
In September 2010, I’d been dating my future wife for a while and had successfully turned her from a dog person into a cat person. OK, I don’t know that I so much “turned” her as I exposed her to cats and made her realize how cool they are. Living in apartments at the time helped as well, since dogs weren’t an option.
For her birthday that year, I bought her a kitten from the Baltimore animal shelter. We named him Ringo because we’re Beatles fans and it suited him. I also call him “Buddy,” as in “Little Buddy,” because he spent a lot of time with me and my cats in Baltimore, adapting to his new family, and would follow me around, weaving in and out of my feet, before we’d settled on a name. To me, he is “LB” from that time.
I’m typing this downstairs as Ringo is upstairs dying. Cancer is a b***h, a b***h that doesn’t just impact humans. After 15 years, today is my boy’s last day. A veterinarian will be coming to the house this evening to end his suffering. He’d been “fading” for a while, showing his age, and getting some treatments to hopefully slow the inevitable. But the inevitable always wins, as it is inevitable.
He was barely eating or drinking the last five days, having to be “encouraged” to do so by me every few hours, along with a steroid and anti-nausea medicine. After a couple of better days, as the doctor said was possible, it all stopped working yesterday. The fluid build-up in his chest from the cancer went from just impacting his breathing some to something worse. He started vomiting last night, which isn’t all that odd for any cat owner to see, but he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything, so it was just bile and saliva. About a dozen times.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2025/11/13/a-few-thoughts-on-life-death-and-politics-n2666351
