I picked Pedey up from a small cottage on a small farm just outside Linlithgow in the summer of 2009. I was unprepared, and instead of using a proper pet carrier, transported him back to St Andrews, meowing woefully all the way, in an old box that once held an inkjet printer. That was in my old Renault Megane. That car saw a lot of Scotland.

Pedey was born in May of that year. I visited him with a couple of pals just after his eyes opened. His mum fell pregnant a week before she was due to be fixed, as did her sister. There were two litters born within just days of each other, so Chris and Archie had to hold a great big kitten give away. I’m pretty sure I got the best one.

I lived in a second floor flat overlooking the sea at the time. Apart from the two balconies, and even then under very strict supervision, Pedey didn’t get a lot of outside time. He did develop a fondness for birdwatching and for a period was delighted to hunt and eat every spider or odd insect he found in the flat. He later decided he didn’t like the taste of either bugs or spiders, sadly, so could no longer be totally relied on for pest control. On the odd occasion he got out of our front door, he could be found in front of the door to the flat below, not understanding that it wasn’t his flat.

Alex, my flatmate, insisted on training him to be held for at least 30 seconds a day. It worked. Pedey was fine with being held for about 30 seconds a day from then on. Never much more. But at least 30.

He slept sometimes with me, sometimes with Alex. Our rooms were opposite each other. He slept under Alex’s duvet but never slept under mine. Perhaps my farts were that much worse?

When I moved back to London, I brought him with me. We took the train. He was in a proper pet carrier by then, an enormous one meant for dogs five or six times his size, but suitable because he liked his space and never slept in the same position for more than five or so minutes at a time. It was a ridiculous thing to carry considering his size. The carrier was unbelievably awkward and always guaranteed to cause muscle strain. But he never complained when I put him in it. He only complained once he realised he couldn’t get out. But there never a fight putting him in.

Shortly after we moved to London together, Pedey nearly died. He had a kidney problem and it took me too long to realise it. He stayed in hospital for over a week and when I collected him the vet told me the whole ordeal probably shortened his life considerably. That he’d be lucky to get to about ten years old. He was only four at the time. It destroyed me. I failed him. I failed him and he didn’t even realise. He forgave me because he didn’t know there was anything to forgive. Pedey recovered and started exploring. Growing up in a second-floor flat denied him the joy of exploring a garden, something he did with abandon during his recovery and for years after.

My mom referred to Pedey as my shadow. When we lived in Scotland, my flatmate Alex and I kinda shared a platonic cat parenthood together. But when I took Pedey to London, I became very much a single cat dad. With a senile (now departed) cat grandpa and cantankerous cat granny on the sidelines, Pedey followed me around the house, spent most nights at the foot of my bed, or trying to sleep on my chest, or often, before proper sleep time, tucked between my arm and my chest, the soft fur of his forehead tucked against my bicep, paws folded on the pit of my elbow, snore-purring and sometimes jerking or shuffling like he was dreaming.

I talked to him a lot. He sat on my lap as I wrote four books, two of which even got published. He became most people’s favourite thing about my instagram account.

Pedey loved Christmas trees. Not to ruin them, as most cats do, but as a point of fascination. He would sit or lie under our Christmas trees for hours on end. Sometimes I felt he was guarding them, sometimes it looked like he was really trying to contemplate what they were for. He would watch me decorate, taking in everything, rapt. I took some of my favourite photos of the wee man on tree guarding duty.

During the first lockdown he developed relationships with several neighbourhood cats who discovered my (his) back garden. I chronicled those stories and couldn’t believe how many folks followed his and their adventures, desperate for a non-disease related story. Felix is still around but Pudge and Patches are long gone. Thankfully, so is Captain Chonk, for some time the most brutal of neighbourhood bullies. I shot him with the hose on several occasions.

Old dogs may not learn new tricks, but old cats do. As he aged he got more adventurous and more social. It was only about four or five years ago he managed to scale the back fence and invade the neighbour’s garden, usually to chase Felix out because Felix had been stealing his food. He went too far once, and got stuck somewhere. It was a neighbour I knew, so I managed to rescue him from there. I worried about him after that, but he never got stuck there again. I don’t know how far he roamed, but I knew he’d come back if I shook a bag of Dreamies out the back door. I’d sometimes hear a couple of thumps and crashes before he appeared for a treat.

Pedey became more social in old age. Formerly shy in company he would strut, and to a point, accept the odd stroke of affection from visitors. He’d sit on laps that were not my own. It was nice. Bragging about how awesome your cat is is hard when your cat is a bit shy. Folks just think they are like every other cat. Pedey was not like every other cat.

It was two or three years ago that I realised he’d gone deaf. I shook the Dreamies and he didn’t come. He had to see the Dreamies, then he came. It took some adjusting. But it was ok. He still ate and loved sitting on my lap and sleeping on my chest and tucking himself into the neuk of my elbow. I wasn’t all that ok. Because I realised Pedey was getting old. I mentioned he’d gone deaf to a vet (not his proper vet, they were off that day, sadly) and they told me they didn’t make cat hearing aids and that annoyed me. I didn’t expect hearing aids for my cat. I wasn’t expecting a fix for the situation. I knew he was old. I expected perhaps some context, an idea about what caused it, or information about how to deal with that as a cat dad in as caring and supportive a way as possible. Note to vets, or anyone in healthcare for people or animals: shrugging and saying ‘duh’ is never a good response.

After he went deaf he started losing weight. He changed. He was unsettled. I went away for a couple of weeks in the beginning of 2023 and he was different. He wouldn’t eat the medicated dry food that he’d insisted on for over a decade. He meowed loudly, when before Pedey kind of had the cat version of a speech impediment. He would try to meow but it would be hoarse. Sort of like a whisper. No longer. He demanded food at all times. Loudly. Two in the morning, three in the morning, five in the morning. He seemed confused. He slept in my bed less frequently.

We went to the vet. He had thyroid issues. Blood pressure issues. Was probably suffering from feline senility. He lost so much weight. I medicated him. Spent more time with him. He no longer followed me. He struggled to jump up to my bed and often, when he got up, would be unsure how to get down.

Pedey went in and out of blindness, and it wasn’t clear when he could see and when he couldn’t. The last year ranged from moments of affectionate, wise, and old, albeit infirmed, cat, to confused and bewildered, bumping against furniture and steering by whisker.

We went to the vet a lot. There was a part of me that wondered if it would be better to put him to sleep. I never wanted him to suffer. I wanted the vet to be honest with me about the differences between unwell and unhappy. Pedey kept cleaning himself and cuddling me and happily sniffing the air in the garden. His nose worked even when his eyes and ears did not. The vet helped.

A couple of weeks ago, Pedey stopped eating. It was only one meal he missed but Pedey didn’t miss meals. He was listless. I took him to the vet and she put him on an IV for the day. He responded. She said he might need some more stuff and gave me more meds and special food and I ordered more of the special food and he got better. We cuddled a lot.

There’s a practical part of my brain that knew he was old and sick and it could be bad. I ran that scenario through in my head over and over again. What would be said, how I would react. I would never ever choose for my pal to suffer. And I would be there.

Last Saturday I was up early and Pedey was bad again. He hadn’t eaten. He was trying to crawl into corners that had no space for him to go. The vet booked him into their hospital in the posh neck of town. The vet there was nice too. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have shrugged her shoulders and made a shitty hearing aid joke if I’d told her he was deaf. They booked him in and it seemed at the time that everything was fixable at least in the short term. Pedey’s life could be comfortably extended a bit longer, but he would have to stay the night. They would call me in the morning.

My wonderful girlfriend took me to dinner and took care of me. I was fragile. We went back to her place. I was in her bed when I got the call just after eight on Sunday morning.

“Yes, I understand and no, I don’t want him to suffer. I’ll be there in an hour and a half.”

I imagined myself so noble when I ran through it all in my head beforehand, when it was theoretical, just a philosophical question and not the actual fucking discussion with the vet. I was in ugly tears, the same I shed when I gave my father’s eulogy only slightly more despairing. Thank fucking god Rosie was there.

I had to sign a release form when I got to the vet. It listed Pedey’s age as 15 years and eleven months. More than the ten predicted so long ago.

Not one, but several stages of my adult life were spent with him at my side. He got food and love but he never really knew how much I needed him. How much I was able to get through with him. Pedey was there for so much. My own diagnosis of MS and attempts to deal with its effects. My father’s dementia and descent into its depths. The deaths of not one but two of my best friends. Jobs I barely survived. A business I founded and subsequently failed to keep going. Relationships started and ended. Books written and some published and some not but fuck he loved being with me when I wrote and I loved him being there. A furry companion who didn’t walk on the keyboard too much. I asked so very much of him and he was there for all of it because he didn’t really know any better. I’m not going to try and project some sort of supernatural genius on him. He was a fucking idiot in a lot of ways. But I really do think he loved me as much as I loved him, in the very different ways demanded by the whole totally different species aspect of things.

I was there with him when he went. I stroked his forehead and scratched behind his ears. Before that I scratched under his chin and told him I loved him and thanked him for being there for me. He was brave and peaceful.

I’ve received so many wonderful messages from people who met Pedey but also those who only knew him from what I posted online. There’s a big gap that he’s left. He was the best of pals. And the 15 years and eleven months he was with me were made that much more wonderful and survivable because of him.

It was a few months ago he jumped into my bed and spent the whole night with me, sleeping on his blanket by my feet. It could have been any night in the last decade and a half. It sucks that it was the last but I am so grateful to have had it.

Thanks, pal.

Pedey the tabby cat looking adorable under the undecorated Christmas tree in 2014 — Pedey under the tree, Christmas 2014