It was Christmas Day 1991 when Hobo entered my life.  I was enjoying Christmas with friends when we heard this loud meowing.  It was a full size, hungry, Hobo.  He probably weighed 6-8 pounds then, if that.  That wasn’t his name then, but it soon became his name.  Anyway, he has been a daily part of my life since. 

In 1995 when I moved to my house and Jeri soon joined me, Hobo was a daily part of both our lives.  At first he was a lap cat, but over time, he tolerated sitting on a lap, but mostly he just wanted to be near me, where ever I was.  For many years he would sleep at the foot of the bed, touching my feet.  In the last few years, he stopped doing that because he couldn’t jump up on the bed any longer.   Over the years, he compensated for being so hungry when we found him by gaining 10-11 pounds and weighing 19-20 pounds at one time.

A week ago, Monday October 3, he didn’t show up in the bathroom when I got up in the morning as his ritual was.  I found him on the recliner in the living room.  He seemed to be just sleeping so I didn’t pay much attention to it.  He does sleep a lot.  That evening when I got home he was still on the recliner, so I picked up and held him for a while, again not noticing any real problem, but then he got up and wanted to go back to the other chair and I found that one of his hind legs was showing signs of paralysis.  I got Jeri and showed her.  We quickly found a vet that was open and took him in.  The Vet checked him out and thought that problem was a ruptured disk in his back, gave him a shot and some pills and he came home.

The next couple days we noticed that he was having problems eating and found a bump on the side of his face and in feeling around his head, found that under his chin didn’t feel right either.  We watched it for a couple days and determined that indeed had additional problems, so today, Sunday October 9, 2005, we took him back to the vet.  They thought that the bumps may be some sort of infection so wanted to look at it which they did but it turned out to be a cancerous growth.  It was affecting his ability to swallow and to eat.  We made the most difficult decision to let him go.  He was a trooper to the very end and died with us around him.  We loved him and will miss very much.  We take comfort in knowing that he is at peace and not suffering any longer.  As much as he liked to eat, we know that it was hard for him not to be able to eat.