Sébastian Schrödinger Halliday 199?-2010
Sébastian Schrödinger, my ruthless mouser, died on 13 December 2010, of a particularly aggressive cancer.
Séba was never really a cuddlesome cat: laps were things to claw at rather than sleep on. His idea of a gentle wake-up was to put his paws under the duvet and dig the claws into any toes he found there. He didn’t sit on my lap while I worked: he preferred to sit close by, between the chair and the heater, so that I developed a habit of looking under my chair before wheeling it backwards.
I found Séba at the Little Valley Animal Shelter in March 2005. I blogged about his backstory at the time.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know he most regularly featured as a mouser extraordinaire – his final kill count had over fifty mice, twenty-four birds of some sort and three rats. He loved leaving them in stupid places (warning, photo contains dead mouse).
He started to quack like a duck a little while back, and the vet found a very aggressive lump against his throat. It was inoperable, and untreatable, so it was a case of waiting till he couldn’t eat properly. The vet I saw on Monday suggested he might have been older than the four years he was guesstimated at back in 2005. I hope so, I hope he had a lot longer than 9 years of life.
15 December 2010 at 10:17 am
Sorry to hear he’s gone. He always sounded like he lived life to the full as a hunter while he was here. xx
15 December 2010 at 10:27 am
Oh, Séba. Oh Mags, I’m so sorry.
15 December 2010 at 11:29 am
I’m so sorry to hear of Sébastian’s passing. I’ve been following his exploits as mouser extraordinaire for quite some time, and I have no doubt there will never be another quite like him again.
15 December 2010 at 9:21 pm
Awwww, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ve always enjoyed the kill count updates. It is good you got several years to spend with him.
16 December 2010 at 12:54 pm
I’m sorry to hear about Sebastian. I’ve enjoyed reading your stories about him and I know he had a good life with you.
16 December 2010 at 1:27 pm
“The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long – and you have burned so very, very brightly, Sébastian.”
Hope things don’t go dark, with this one gone.
18 December 2010 at 10:35 pm
Only just seen your very sad news – I’m so sorry. At least he had a wonderful life with you.
22 December 2010 at 11:14 pm
Mags, I’m sorry to hear about Seba’s passing. From one cat lover to another – I understand the pain.
26 December 2010 at 7:12 pm
Thanks all. It doesn’t seem quite as real as my first cat’s passing. Maybe because there is so much else that demands my attention now, or maybe because the prognosis gave me time to accept it.
4 January 2011 at 10:11 am
So sorry to hear of Sebastian’s death — I’m glad it’s not hurting quite as much, this time round.
x
14 February 2011 at 10:07 am
[...] which point, nearly two months after he died, Sébastian gave us a parting gift. A mummified mouse corpse. It was [...]