We put our cat to sleep this week.

I actually introduced him to Hubski when we first got him - lil Elvis.

The last two weeks his health declined quite rapidly, we knew he had kidney disease, and we knew it would be the thing that got him in the end no matter what we did. A month ago he was very active, happy as can be, and this week he would only sit on us and purr softly. He was slow to turn to anything that got his attention, and he'd stumble when he walked. He was eating almost nothing, drinking water all the time and most obviously, no longer cleaning himself. He just wasn't enjoying life, and we knew the time had come.

We arranged for our vet to do a home visit to put him to sleep. The last thing we wanted was for him to be scared in his last moments. The vet arrived, took one look at him and said "Yeah, he's ready to go." One jab to put him into a restful coma, another jab to let him rest properly. All up it took about 15 minutes. My partner and I cried the whole time. We're having him cremated, and will plant a tree for him out the back. We've been meaning to get some fruit trees going. I've still got his collar. We have hundreds of photos of him. I took a little recording of him purring the night before he passed. He still sounded like a V8.

I just miss him. He was our best bud. An incredibly calm, delightfully friendly cat who came into his own once we rescued him. We can sleep with the bedroom door closed now, but we don't. We can leave glasses of water around the lounge now, but we don't. We can leave the backdoor open when doing chores, but we don't. It'll take time to adjust, I think.

It hurt to watch him go, but we gave him the last gift we could. He got to go sleeping, in his favourite person's arms (my partner) and without a worry.

As far as he's concerned, he's still sleeping. He'll wake up when he's ready.