Richard Parker

by Linda
(New Jersey)

As I would leave my house, I would often see a cat that looked just like my cat on the street. I was always surprised because I'd see my cat, Marshal, in the house when I left. Looking closer, I would see that it wasn't Marshal at all, but a stray cat who looked similar.

The stray cat became more and more friendly. I would pet it and pick it up. There was a parking lot up the street from my house and I saw the stray cat there one day when I was walking through it. The guards at the parking lot said they had been feeding him and he had no home. They guessed that someone from a nearby apartment building moved and left him behind.

Well, that was my cue. My family said it was ok for me to keep him. I brought him to the vet to be neutered and checked out.

This is when I discovered that cats with part of their ear missing are stray cats that have been neutered and returned to the street. So we didn't have to neuter him. He had really bad fleas, though and that had to be treated.

It wasn't until the end of the exam that the injury was noted. It looked like some other animal had taken a big bite out of his front armpit. It would require intense surgery and the vet offered to put him down because it was too expensive a procedure to be done with a stray cat.

Too late! I was in love. He had the surgery and healed just fine. Marshal was a very easy going cat and adapted to his new friend well.

The parking guards named the cat after the nearby apartment building. My kids wanted to name him the price of his surgery. But I had been seeing all sorts of tiger imagery all of a sudden and I wanted to name him after a famous tiger. So I named him Richard Parker.

The name caused some confusion at the vet's office sometimes because they have the pet's files under the owner's last name. So when I said Rochard Parker, they'd look under P for his files! I'd have to explain that my last name was different from his name.

He continues to be friendly. I had him as an indoor/outdoor pet because I thought he must have lived his life outdoors and enjoyed it. Sometimes he would sit on the porch of a neighbor.

Sometimes he would look into the windows of another neighbor. That neighbor said they think he was born in their backyard. They took in a mother and two babies several years earlier. One day the mother and the boy kitten disappeared. They still had the female cat and they think Richard Parker liked to check up on her.

He was a wonderful, cheerful cat. He adjusted well when my other cat, Marshal, died.

One day I noticed him limping. It seemed like one day he'd limp on one foot and one day the next. It was during COVID and it was hard to take him to the vet. I did take him, though, but I couldn't go in with him and communication with the vet was through the phone. They kept saying they couldn't find anything wrong with him and then I'd bring him back a week or so later with the same result. I feel like if I had been able to be face-to-face with the vet I could have expressed how I just didn't feel like everything was OK with him better.

One vet at the practice started following him and gave me some medication. He stopped eating. He just seemed...tired.

He was looking sick. Then one morning he had a seizure. The vet told me to take him to the emergency room. Once again, I couldn't go in with him, so I wanted outside. They gave me the bad news over the phone that he wouldn't make it. I was allowed to go in and sit in a private room with him as he passed away in my arms.

We buried him with a little ceremony in the backyard. It was a while before I could have another cat.