November would’ve made 21 years.

Smeagol was with me for over half my life, and pretty much my full adult life to this point. He was with me as I fell in and out of love who knows how many times over the years. He was with me as I bounced from apartment to mobile home to house to camper to our own property. He somehow managed to survive through the college years. He and I grieved the loss of other pets together over the last couple of decades. And he was a friendly face as I lost both my father and maternal grandfather earlier this year.

It feels as if he had always been a part of my life and ready to brighten my day with a little nudge of the nose.

This “saying goodbye” thing happens more and more often as I get older, but I’m not sure if it ever truly gets easier. You just somehow learn to live with it, keeping those who have passed alive through the person you are, having been shaped by them.

I often talk about how we live many lives, and this feels like the end of one. This entire year has felt like that. But where one life ends, a new one begins.

The other cats and I will have to find our new path and start a new journey without grumpy ol’ grandpa Smeagol.

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Smeagol and his sister, Oly (short for Olyandra), were adopted sometime around Thanksgiving 2003. I don’t recall the exact date, so we always said their birthdays were all of Thanksgiving week. Given their size at the time, I would guess they were really born in October of 2003, but November was when they came into our lives.

Smeagol was not originally my cat. My high-school friend and then college roomate, Tim Russell, claimed him. And Oly became mine.

Tim was a huge Lord of the Rings fan at the time, so Smeagol (technically, Sméagol) was crowned with like the worst cat name I could imagine. But it was reasonably unique as far as pet names go, I suppose.

My grandpa (Papa Frazier) offered these two stray kittens to us that Thanksgiving week. His coon dog had trapped them (Blue was a smart dog who knew how to corral but not attack). So we left to begin a new life in an apartment in Auburn.

Oly was the skittish one, afraid of her own shadow. But Smeagol was as wild as they come. He was a kitten in every sense of the word. There was no nook he wouldn’t attempt to sneak into, no hallway he wouldn’t dart down, and no daring stunt he wouldn’t try. Ask me sometime how we fared with a live Christmas tree that one year.

Smeagol was full of life, as if he had so much inside that he’d explode if he didn’t let it out. He was simultaneously the most annoying and joyful pet I’ve had.

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Even in the end, he was still the most vocal cat I’ve ever known. He was the sort of pet that you often think of as at least somewhat human, as he talked to you with his loud meows. His emotions were on full display, and he never let you ignore him.

Eventually, Tim and I took separate paths, but we decided to keep brother and sister together. And I officially became the cat dad to two adult cats. Well, Smeagol still had a lot of “kitten” left in him—for a great number of years.

In early 2013, we lost Oly. She was only 9 years old. At the time, we had moved back to “the country” near where I’d grown up. Smeagol hid in a closet for a full two days waiting for his sister to return. I had to force him out to ensure that he would eat and drink. I think it took him a bit to recover.

Not long after, he became the “grandpa” to a new set of kittens from a stray cat we called Kit. As time passed on, he fell more into his grandpa role as our cat family grew and shrunk.

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Through it all, he was the one constant in my life. It was as if he was the one cat who would defy the odds and stay with me until the very end.

In his late teens, I could see that he was growing older. He couldn’t quite make those jumps like he used to. He slept more and played less. He was still the same kitten at heart that he’d been all those years before, but his body didn’t have the strength it once had.

I’d first noticed this decline when I was living next to my grandparents, the place we had originally adopted him and his sister. I would often wonder if it would be his final resting place, coming full circle in his life. He’d already lived in Auburn, Atlanta, Troy, and Honoraville. He’d seen a lot over the years, but he still had miles to go.

He still had fun adventures left, like taking my niece’s chair away and watching cat TV:

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In January 2023, Smeagol had only his second non-routine vet visit. The first had been when he’d bloodied his leg in a street fight as a kitten. But this time was different. At best guess, the vet thought Smeagol had suffered a stroke. His hind legs were not doing what his brain was telling them to do.

I had prepared myself for the end, but Smeagol was a fighter and wouldn’t let something like a stroke take him down for long. With some steroids and a few weeks of wobbling, he eventually relearned how to walk. Mind you, he never 100% walked like he had in the past, but he kept on going and lived to see his 20th birthday.

For me, it was the gift of more time. I knew I’d eventually have to let go, and a part of me wonders if he held on as long as he did just because he knew I wasn’t ready.

Our story had one more chapter. He was needed as I went through the toughest losses I’d been through.

But time is the one foe we cannot run from. From the moment we are born, we are hurtling toward some unknown finish line. The best we can do is live our years to their fullest, and Smeagol got more than most cats.

He didn’t quite make it to 21, which is somewhere around 100 in “cat years.” But I like to think that he knew I’d be OK caring for the rest of the cat family (we’re down to four—five counting me). And that it was OK to finally say goodbye.

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My sister and I laid Smeagol to rest yesterday, August 19, 2024. He’s next to Twinkle now, but his memory, his life, is something that I will carry on until my time is gone.