Biden came to us on a sunny winter day.  We had recently lost a valued member of our family, our cat Gibbs, and grief stricken, Lisa said, “We have to get another cat right away”.  But I said, “No.  You don’t get a cat, a cat gets you”. 

Not long had past when Lisa found this tiny little guy laying in the sun out our backdoor by our shed, curled up as tight as he could trying to stay warm in the sunbeam.  It was early March and Lisa called me to tell me about what she had found.

It wasn’t a brutal cold day and he was curled up in the sun, such a very little guy.  She immediately fell in love with him and she opened the door expecting him to jump and run in and introduce himself.  It did not pan out that way.  Scared little guy jumped up and ran the other way.

I came home and he was back in the sun beam.  We tried everything to catch him, determined that he was our new cat.  We left treats out and we’d wait.  We’d see him with the treats and we’d try to sneak up on him and he wanted none of it.  But I had an idea.

From our cat we had just lost, we had this stroller kind of thing and we rigged up this crazy contraption with a thin rope that attached to the door, went up high, strung across to our door and we waited until he took the trail of food into the stroller where I’d pull the rope, bringing up the door to close and he’d be ours to love and love and love.

Sounds good in concept, but execution was another story.  After 2 or 3 three attempts, and modifications to our love trap, it finally worked.  We had our beloved cat.  It was late afternoon on a Saturday and the sun was beginning to go down, but we caught him.  We brought him into the living room where we all (Lisa, myself and 4 year old Kate) proceeded to love on him and hold him tight.

At night we put him in the bathroom with a litter box, a sweat shirt that I had worn that acted as a blanket (and had my human smell on it), some water and some kitten food.

Next morning we woke up and got breakfast and got our new cat out of the bathroom.  We held him and passed him around as we got ready for church.  Kate was having breakfast in her high chair and our kitten walked across my shoulders, kind of jumped on the back of her high chair and then jumped on the kitchen counter where he proceeded to wedge himself between the wall and the upper kitchen cabinets above the sink.  And I could not get him out.  I didn’t want to just yank him out, I didn’t want to hurt the little guy.

He was wedged in there tight.  We decided we needed to leave for church, he’d be fine in the house, we’ll come home and he’d be fine.

Went to church, came home and no cat. Looked all over the house – nothing.  All day Sunday we looked – nothing.  Went to bed and woke up Monday morning and looked – still nothing.

Lisa had gotten on the phone on Saturday and made a vet appointment for Monday morning, as she was certain we’d have brought him in by them.  So she called the vet’s office on Monday and changed it until Tuesday – he’s in the house – we’ll find him.

We did not.

On Tuesday, Lisa called ½ hour before our scheduled appointment and changed it until Wednesday.  That was cancelled also and the vet said to call them if we do get him.  Keep in mind that he was really tiny and we thought he was a boy, but we weren’t 100% sure.

So we had a cat for a night….. I forget the number of days we looked, but I had kind of given up.  It was a mystery where he went.

I don’t remember what day it was, but it was in the middle of the day and I had to put something away Kate’s bedroom closet.  I turned on the light, opened the door and SON OF A BITCH – there he was.  Standing on the top shelf in Kate’s closet looking at me like a deer in the headlights.  I’m not sure who was more shocked to see who, me or him.

Now, how did this tiny cat get into Kate’s closet, upstairs, behind a closed door?  We still do not 100% know. Years earlier I was upstairs in the attic and I stepped on a soft spot and went through the floor.  I went downstairs and looked all through the house and could not find where I went through.  I thought maybe I had gone through a space between the walls.  I had actually stepped through the floor of the attic and gone through the ceiling in Kate’s closet, against the wall, not something that jumped out at you when you went into the closet.

YEAH – we found the cat.  It was somewhere between 8-10 days.

That’s how this cat FINALLY got brought into the Sumstine family.

Okay – what do we name him.  Lisa, being from Delaware, was thrilled when Joe Biden became VP when President Obama was inaugurated, and it had recently happened, so we named this little furry guy, Biden.  We had recently lost Gibbs (Gibbs, Joe, as Joe Gibbs had just gone back to coaching the Redskins when we got him).  Before the passing of Gibbs, we had lost Presley, Presley Elvis, named after Elvis Presley (in case you weren’t picking up on our name game).  Biden was him name and we always called him Biden Cat.

There’s only one way to state what happened, Biden became MY cat.  He followed me around the entire house.  He followed me around everywhere and he slept either beside me or on me, but always near me – ALWAYS.   He was just a little guy, and the vet proclaimed him healthy, a little malnourished as it appeared he didn’t spend too much time with his mother cat and he had disappeared for a week or so.  He came into our home and became a loved member of our family, and he became my shadow.

I’ve had many cats and they all had different personalities, but this guy was special.  He loved to play, and with me, he’d scratch and growl and put his teeth on me.  But only with me.  When he played with Lisa, he was gentle and not aggressive. And when he played with Kate, he just played along, letting her take the lead and was completely subdued, never getting his claws out and never putting his teeth on her.

But playing with me – he tore me up.  Claws, teeth and lots of rough play – he and I both loved it.  His favorite game was the “Under the Blanket” game, I’d move my hand under the blanket and he’d full on attack with all four sets of claws out and all teeth on me.  I’m not sure if he enjoyed the laser pointer so we didn’t do that much.  He chased it, but there was nothing at the end for him to get, so I never really liked that.

In November we had Charlotte.  Biden had been with us for about 7 months and didn’t seem to notice another little person in the house.  He still followed me around every where I went and enjoyed being loved on by Lisa and Kate.

As Charlotte got a bit older and began crawling, Biden started to question what the deal was.  He was fully entrenched in our family, but he didn’t know what to think about this little girl that was crawling and soon learning to walk who would grab onto him and throw herself all over him.  But God Bless that guy – he never scratched or bit or hissed – no matter what she put him through.  Nope.  When he’d had enough, he kind of just slowly left the room to go looking for me to wrestle with to get out his frustration built up aggression. 

There was one day when I walked into a room and there was Charlotte, dragging Biden across the room – BY HIS TAIL !!!  And there he was, just being dragged along and just dealing with it.  Oh the “playing” that Charlotte and Biden did…  As Charlotte got older, Biden warmed to her and she’d often take him upstairs to play in her room.

As the years went on, Biden became glued to his routine.   He always had dry food and water and he got a ½ can of cat food for his breakfast and a full can at his dinner.  I’ve always been an early riser – but not early enough I guess.  If Biden thought I was sleeping late, and thus, delaying his breakfast, he’d scratch and claw at our bedroom door until I got up to feed him.  This went on for years.  I used to get up to be at the gym at 5:00am, and Biden was a fan of that, because that meant he got his breakfast at 4:00am

Finally, I gave in and when I went to bed, I’d give him a “nighttime snack”, giving him a ½ can.  So his new feeding schedule was: ½ can for breakfast, anytime from 4:00-5:00am, a full can for dinner as close to 5:00pm as I could and then ½ can at night at about 10:00pm.  This basically stopped the scratching at our bedroom door.

*sidenote* Lisa says she never heard his scratching at the door.  When it happened, and this went on for years, I’d either get up and feed him, but that led to a continued pattern of him thinking, “Hey – this works”, so instead I left a pillow by the door and instead of getting up to feed him, I begin lightly swatting at him with a pillow.

The Milton Theatre has a variety of shows and performances and one night they had a pet psychic making an appearance.  We were invited to go, and to take our cat Biden.  So we put Biden in his stroller – yes, we had a stroller for Biden, as the girls did enjoy loading him up and walking around with him around town.  The pet psychic did say 2 specific things to us:

1. “This is very important to him.  Biden wants you to know that’s he’s not fat, he’s just a big cat, and it’s very important to him that you know that.”
2. To Charlotte, “He loves you dearly, but he wishes you’d not be quite so rough with him.”

As the years went on – Biden became even more a central part of our family.  Many days, either Kate or Charlotte would take Biden upstairs with them to take a nap or to just hang out.  Sometimes he’d stay and nap with them and sometimes he’d prefer not, and after scratching at their door to get out, we’d hear the door open, and we’d hear tiny footsteps on the stairs as he headed down.

Biden also shifted his persona and slowly drifted away from being my shadow to now spending more time with the ladies.  In his first 6-8 years, he was my shadow.  If I was in the house, he was in the same room and hung out by me or on me.  But later, he shifted his attention to the ladies.  Lisa and I sit on a couch and Biden started to jump up on her lap to be pet, be brushed, or to just be held while he fell asleep for a while.  We also noticed him wanting to spend more time with Kate and Charlotte.  They’d come down and be on the couch adjacent to our couch and Biden would jump up on the couch to rub heads with them and just be beside them.  He became quite the lover.

If you came to our house, make no mistake – Biden wanted to be seen.  He’d rub up against the legs of everyone.

I do not know what caused this shift in him.  Biden still purred when I rubbed him and he still came when I called him – without fail, but he simply one day just stopped following me around and being my shadow.  My guess is that he didn’t feel like playing and roughhousing anymore, he only wanted to be loved on and snuggle.  The ladies were always for loving and I was always for play (and his feedings).

But make no mistake, Biden’s internal clock was on point, and when it was time for him to be fed, he would find me and just sit and stare at me until he got fed.

The years had begun to take it’s toll on the boy and at a vet’s visit, it was diagnosed that Biden had developed pet diabetes and now we added insulin into his daily routine.  It took a while to get the correct dosage for him but with 2 shots a day, one before his breakfast and one before his nighttime snack, his weight got under control and he seemed a bit healthier and was still a healthy and happy member of our family.

I now referred to him as a “grumpy old man”.  He simply gave no F’s.  He did what he wanted.  He chose which lady he wanted to be beside and get pets from.  Almost every morning as the girls would get ready for school, they’d sit on the couch in the living room to talk with me and put their shoes on and he’d go right over to get a few head rubs and a few minutes of loving.  No matter how much time they had, I’d always caution them to take a minute and love on him, “He went over to see you, so take a minute and pet him and love on him”, and they always did.

This guy was well fed and well loved.  Biden led a great life.

As he got older, he slowed down.  He struggled to jump up on the couch for his attention, you now had to pick him up to get him on the couch.  But without fail, if you called him, he came.  Biden had stopped coming upstairs for the most part.  He still walked okay, we hadn’t noticed him having trouble walking, but he didn’t go upstairs any longer.

We knew things were coming to a close.  He didn’t jump up on the couch for his petting and snuggling, instead we had to pick him up.  He began missing the litter box and we started leaving the light on for him at night and that seemed to help.  His vision had started to fail and the vet cautioned us that dementia had kind of begun.  But we loved on him all the same and he loved on us right back

We were getting ready for Kate to graduate high school and we just needed Biden to hang on for a little while longer.  We could tell the end was coming.   We had called the vet to see about end of life procedure.  We did not want Biden to struggle and once we thought he was struggling and in pain, we’d make the call.  Kate graduated and then Kate and Lisa went on a trip to Florida to celebrate, while Charlotte still had a few days of school left and I had work to do.

They left on a Saturday morning and Charlotte and I were home with the Biden Cat.  But that weekend, I noticed Biden struggling to walk and he just wasn’t himself.  He began sleeping in places he didn’t usually sleep and was mostly withdrawn from us.  I had decided on Tuesday I’d call the vet and see if I needed to take Biden to them, or if they’d come to us.  I wanted whatever made Biden most comfortable.  It was time.

*sidenote 2* – maybe our vet said this about every cat, but she always told us Biden was their favorite cat.  They loved his gentle ways and he always allowed then to do what they needed to do.

I fed him his breakfast as usual about 5:30 Tuesday morning.

*sidenote 3* – Biden seemed to only like Friskies Turkey, either the chunks or shreds.  He still ate chicken on occasion, but never cleaned his bowl quite like he did when he had turkey.  So for the last month of so, I only fed him Turkey – at every meal.

About 7:30am as I was getting another cup of coffee, I noticed he had hardly touched his breakfast, not like him.  I kind of knew something was up.  I was going to put eyes on him and then wait for the vet to open to make the dreaded phone call.  I knew he’d be in the workroom which is what we call the room just off the kitchen and that’s where I found him, he had passed away on his own.

While I hate the fact that he passed alone, in the dark work room, I do appreciate that I think he knew what was coming and as Lisa explained, he loved us so much that he didn’t want us to go through that, so he decided it was his time and he was ready.  He simply laid down and passed.

I wrapped him in a towel and I went outside to find a resting place for him.  To be buried with him I put a can of turkey cat food, a swatch of crochet that Lisa had done, as for the last few year years, Biden would jump up on Lisa’s lap when she was on her spot working on something she’d be crocheting, and I out in two pictures, one of the 4 Sumstines and my favorite pic of Charlotte and Biden “playing” (pictured above).

I placed him in his final resting place and I spoke out loud about all the good times we had as I buried him.  It was very sad and I got a little choked up and teary eyed, but I will always be grateful for that little knucklehead and what he gave our family.

His was a life well lived.  He loved us unconditionally.  During the pandemic, Biden was a frequent visitor in the zoom classes of both Kate and Charlotte.  If he came in the living room and Lisa was sitting on the couch, you could almost see him thinking, “Oh boy – time for some good pets”.  When we came home after being out, he’d always be at the door to greet us.

We do miss him.  We’re not ready for another cat just yet.  For us, no other cat could come close to our Biden cat.  We speak of him often and though we are saddened without him, we’ll always remember the love he gave us.

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