Goodbye blue-eyed buddy (Phibun, August 2008 - 15 March 2012)

The vet told me it was jaundice.

It's common for a cat four years and above. Especially cats like Phibun - that are not wild yet not that domesticated. We let him go wherever he wanted, and who knows what he ate and drank during those times he was outside.

He was given a shot, pills for the jaundice and pills to increase his appetite, since he's almost skeletal from not eating anything we gave him. The vet told me to bring him back to the clinic in two weeks and see his progress. I left him to sleep on the stairs as I was leaving to Tim's and to help her with the engagement preparation. Told the guy "Please, try to eat something and be healthy again." He blinked slowly, like his usual "What-do-I-care" look and then shut his eyes to sleep.

That was the last time I saw Phibun.

If you asked me if I am upset with my cat's demise, of course I am. Phibun has been part of my life for nearly five years. As soon as I saw his weird brownish white colour and blue eyes when he was just but a tiny little thing, I wanted him to be mine. Phibun was a routine that made me feel sane. He was the one creature I can be mad at, scream at, cuddle, love, hate, all at the same time.

I am a busy person. I am always in front of my laptop, working. The only way to distract me from the laptop was when I saw Phibun outside the glass door, waiting for me to let him in and give him food - mainly his Smart Heart meals. That's the only time you will see me stop working and moving away from all shit I'm working on. If you ever watched THE GOLDEN COMPASS, Phibun was like my very own dæmon. He follows me around that sometimes I just walk in circles just to make fun of him. Every morning I wake up and open the door, making sure that he is outside, waiting for the door to open. He'll have his food and then sat next to me on the sofa while I eat my breakfast and streams tv series online - hoping that I will not finish my food and he can get something from that. Everytime I opened the tudung saji to get lauk, Phibun will climb on the chair and waited for something, anything. He will not try to climb the table or steal the fish, no matter if it was open for his eyes to see.

Sometimes as he waited for me to finish my food in hopes that there is something to eat, I will intentionally eat only half of my fish or chicken or meat so I can give the rest to him. If he's full, he will sit in front of the glass door and clean himself. Sometimes he sat there and looked outside the window, maybe grunted about the squirrels outside that kept stealing his food. Sometimes when he was bored, Phibun would get up and then sleep on my feet. I'll tell him that he's a nuisance, and he retaliates by holding on tighter to my leg while stretching, writhing, yawning and twisting, without moving away from my feet.

During Ramadhan, he will stay by my side while I do my tahajjud prayer in the darkest nights. Sometimes when I was reciting Fatihah, he would lie down on the praying mat and making me recite more surah because I can't do my sujud with him on my sujud position. When he's bored or wanted to go out, Phibun will scratch the carpet with his sharp claws and waited until I opened the door.

Sometimes when I'm mad at something or someone, I will rant it to Phibun. Not like the dude understood anything, but the look on his nonchalant face is just hysterical. Sometimes I rant on Facebook about him, his annoying behaviour, the fact that he just watched the rats walking across him without doing anything and only waste my money on cat food taing care of a lazy pet. But it was just something I do. That's my love hate relationship with my cat. I screamed at him, he tore my skin because he seemed to think he was a tiger, I pulled his ears when he left fish bones on the carpet and I stepped on it, he crapped on the expensive sofa and I give him a piece of my mind.

But now, I don't have a routine anymore. I have no Phibun to scream at, talk to, laugh at, or spend the remaining cents in my account balance buying food for.

This is gonna be a shitty time.

Thank you for the four years, Phibun. You were surely the Frank Sinatra to my Rat Pack.

His favourite thing to do: Rubbin his head on my feet

Every single morning...