The King is dead.  All hail the King.

I never knew a cat to have a fan club.  That was before I knew Lazarus.  He has received mail and visitors, and never lacked a friendly lap to sit on.  He didn’t have a mean bone in his body, he loved everybody, and his love was returned by all who knew him.  His one exception was a small kitten we rescued from an abusive old woman.  We introduced him to Lazarus who told us in no uncertain terms, the kitten stays, the kitten dies!  The kitten didn’t stay.

As a cream ginger cat, one of his delights was to attach himself to somebody, anybody, wearing back, on whom he shed copious amounts of his pale fur.  When Lazarus cuddled you, you stayed cuddled!  It may have been one way of marking somebody as his person, but that wasn’t his only way.  He once sprayed my jeans, while I was wearing them!

His foibles were many, and mostly endearing.  On the day I bought him full grown from the Cat Haven, I also bought a cat bed.  He firmly refused to consider sleeping in it, and made my bed his own, and slept in it most nights all his life.

At first he seemed to be afraid of men, hiding under the couch from them, but my son Vince cured him of that, and they enjoyed many a mock fight together.  Both my sons are cat lovers, and even though Robert was allergic to cat fur, he couldn’t resist hugging Lazarus, with eyes and nose streaming!

I had him for 13 years, and in all that time I never had to tell him off or smack him, not once, but he was far from being a goody two shoes.  When I called him, he’d consider whether to ignore me or to let his curiosity take over.  Usually, he’d ignore me, as his laziness nerve was very strongly developed, and he could out-sleep anybody.  I once read that cats can sleep for up to eighteen hours a day, but Lazarus could sleep for twenty five hours a day, standing on his head (if you see what I mean!).  One of my pet names for him was “lump under the doona”.

Another of his acts of rebellion (or independence) was to prepare to starve to death rather than eat anything he didn’t want to.  In his previous life, he had been brought up on dry biscuits, and it took me years to get him to try anything new.  He eventually developed a taste for fish and prawns, even the occasional bit of liver, but I could leave steak, chicken, sausages, anything, lying around defrosting, and know they were perfectly safe from him.  Yet, had he chosen, he could have lived like a king.

When we lived in flats in Coolbellup, he would not happily go out in the daytime, as he was afraid of birds!  I discovered the reason for this when I was attracted by a racket outside, and discovered Lazarus cowering at the foot of the stairs, while crows and magpies lined the veranda rails, screaming at him, while a wattle bird looked on. 

When we moved into our present house with a private courtyard, the birds didn’t make him the butt of their aggression, and he discovered a love for sitting in the sun or under the nasturtiums.  He became so used to the birds that he would even venture into the front garden, where magpies, crows, doves and galahs would come to the bird bath and for food I throw onto the lawn for them. 

He was very old by this time, and too slow to do more than watch the birds, probably dreaming of earlier, more athletic days, when he would have scattered the lot with ease.  The birds too, seemed to recognise that he was harmless, and tolerated his presence as they pecked in the grass, with no more than an occasional wary eye on him.

It was a grand performance when one day my weero was startled by a sneeze and flew from my shoulder onto Lazarus’s back.  I’m not sure who was the more surprised, but the cat went one way and the bird went the other!  Exit, panicking all the way, stage left!

Lazarus, I love you and miss you.