Requiem for a Heavyweight

I haven't shared this with the general public yet because there were just too many things going on. But now it's time.

On the day I went to San Diego Comic-Con, His Highness Master of All He Surveys and Owner of His Queen Mum's Heart (aka Claude) went across the Rainbow Bridge.

He was over 19 1/2 and had a very good life, ruling over the Killer Kitties AND the Canine Death Squad for his entire existence. He was my best beloved of my fur babies, and we shall not see his like again. 

One of the Alien Collective in Very Good Standing, Jan Robinson, made many hand-crocheted representations of my various works, including for The Happy Acres Haunted Hotel for Active Seniors, which memento was a ghost. The Ghost arrived and His Highness immediately claimed it for his own. He slept with it, cuddled with it, and kept all others away from it. When we moved from Hell's Orientation Area to Hotlanta it stayed in the crate with him and had a permanent home on the cat tree in our room where he slept. He loved The Ghost so much that we buried it with him.

He also loved the Pilla babies Jan made from "A Bug's Life" (Installment 3 of The Martian Alliance Chronicles) but not to the extent he loved The Ghost. Fluffy Death still has claim to the Pillas.

For those who've read my humor collection, Random Musings from the Funny Girl, you've already realized that His Highness chose his death day carefully. Not for him a major holiday or a birthday. No, for the Cat of Cats, he chose to go (thankfully on the bed, next to me, and before I had to leave for the airport) on the day I left for the biggest con in the world. Meaning he will always be connected with SDCC in my mind, and I can think of no other day more befitting the cat of an author whose first con was SDCC way back when.

So, the cheerful ghost plushie that I got from Kirakira Doodles at SDCC this year has more meaning for me than just being a cute plushie. It's the combo of Claude and His Ghost, something for me to have to remember both of them by.

The King is dead...long live the King forever in my heart.

Which means Fluffy Death is the only Killer Kitty left. For now, at least. I feel confident that, when it's time, His Highness will guide me to an appropriate replacement. And until then, Fluffy Death, His Nibs, and The Little Prince are all jockeying to fill the role of Ruler, while His Highness looks on from across the Bridge and laughs to himself, knowing that there could be and only was one of Himself.

Love, Gini