A week ago, I had to bid farewell to Ignatz, my little cat buddy of 21 years. Needless to say, after so many years he has left a huge gap.

I first introduced Ignatz here on January 19, 2011, in  a post titled: “And here’s the cat.”  In that post I told the story of Ignatz’s arrival in my life, 21 years ago, and also how he got his name — I feel it’s worth a read, if you have the time.

The second feature was in June 20, 2011: In Which I Have Been Remiss…

I posted another photo of Ignatz earlier this year, on April 1:  Here’s Another Photo of My Cat…

Anyway, I’ve been thinking this week about the character of Ignatz, aka Iggy, The Igster, The Germ, Pignatz (he did like his food, in fact one friend liked to say that he had “a thin ‘feed me’ face on a huge ‘I’ve been fed’ body” 😉 ) and here are a few of the words and phrases I came up with:

• valiant
• determined
• loyal
• loving to his “peeps” (but)
• shy of strangers
• a scrapper
• long-lived (clearly!)
• cute as a button
• greedy 😉

In fact, I would like to borrow a few words from a poem I penned for another friend, long ago, for his epitaph:

There is no praise I could say more of you than true:
true heart, true friend, greatly beloved.

And greatly missed.

Farewell, little cat buddy; good bye, Ignatz the Cat: haere ra, haere ra, haere ra.