Goodbye Bubba

FG's cat died today.  His mother is a mess.  Bubba lived with her.  There was some shared custody after FG's parents divorced but for the most part, Bubba was the companion of my MIL.  He was a cranky old cat, with good reason.  FG got the cat in 1991 a few months before we met in 1992.   Thus, we stared calling him "Yoda" because he was so freakin' old.  He used up all of his 9 lives in the first few years - he was 1) attacked by a dog and nearly killed - he had a notch out of his ear as his battle scar
2) Shot.  That shattered his leg and it was rebuilt.  He had a funky external cast thing on for awhile that looked like a handle sticking off his leg.  I think that was on there when FG and I got married.
3) right after he got his "handle" off, he jumped and broke the same leg.  Literally days later.  He had more surgery and got some metal put in there.
4) he developed kitty diabetes and had to have shots of insulin daily

I think there's a few things I'm missing because it seemed like that cat kept the Vet in a Mercedes. 
He was obnoxious when he was younger too.  He sat and tried to take food off my fork when I would eat dinner.  Why he bothered me I have no idea.  But always me.  He would swipe at my hand while I ate.  He also "felt me up" regularly.  FG would pick him up and hold him like a baby. He would reach out one paw and always put it on my boob.  When we were first dating and FG was still living at home, I would spend the night even though I wasn't supposed to.  We managed to keep it a secret in his little twin bed and MIL would come in and put the cat on FG every morning.  As we hid under the covers trying to look like one person, she plopped the cat on us.  We finally told her a few years ago and she swears she had no idea.  (Yes, she really is that clueless sometimes).

The funniest thing about him is the past few years he had a "gang" of old men cats.  I have never ever seen a cat go to another cat's front door and meow until the other cat was let out.  Bubba had two friends who did this regularly.  They came to his door and waited until MIL let him out and then off they would go - grumpy old men.  I think they swapped kitty war stories...."Then the dog, enormous with giant sharp teeth, had me in his clenched jaw...." 

MIL will be very sad for awhile. It's hard to have a cat that long and not miss him.  FG will miss him too.   My kids will really miss him too.  DS does not do well with the animal's deaths.  So I lied. This morning before school I told him that Bubba was sick but still alive.  At that very moment, he was but the vet was on her way over to change that and I knew it.