E.S. Raye

You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t want to get too deep into anything today. The fact is, this is a sad home right now, and it’s been difficult to focus on work.

We lost another fuzzy, four-legged member of our family last week, the old man of the house and our resident quintessential orange cat, Pickles.

Pickles was rescued from a neglectful, drug dealing owner by my wife Jessie many years before we met. Due to this origin story, she named him Dillinger after the bank robber, Dil for short.

When Jessie and I started dating, and ultimately moved in together, I could not take this orange clown seriously as a “Dillinger,” so I started jokingly calling him “Pickles.” As in dill pickles.

Cue the rimshot.

But, because he was a very silly guy, it stuck, and even my mother-in-law, who Pickled had lived with for years, started calling him that.

We were never sure of Pickles’s age because Jessie didn’t know it for sure when she rescued him, but we estimated he was somewhere around 19 or 20. Old enough to know he had fewer years ahead than behind. But everyone–vets included–agreed he looked like a cat half that age, so we tended to think we had more time.

Unfortunately, that was not the case, and we lost my little man in the early hours of last Thursday morning.

He could be demanding and even authoritarian at times, but he was fearless and the most affectionate little ball of fuzz I have every known.

I miss him already, so you’ll have to indulge me as I take some time to remember him.