She purred, softly, and her head rested on my shoulder as I held her in my arms one last time. At the same time, waves of happy memories and tears flooded the room.

We’d had Nomad since the day she was born. It was June 1, 2013, when I found her, as well as her mother and siblings. We had a loose piece of siding on the chimney that allowed her mama to crawl into a small space and safely bring five babies into the world.

We waited for them to move on, but they didn’t, so we put food out for Mama and she decided this would be a fine place to raise a family. Biscuit quickly moved the kids to the carport, and 2013 became the summer we got a cat.

It was fascinating to watch all of them grow. I saw Biscuit teach her kittens how to do everything from hunt, to groom themselves, to bury their poop. We were especially grateful for the latter, since it made sure they were housebroken. It was like watching a nature video firsthand.

As the summer wound down, we gave three of the kittens away. Another went missing. Biscuit got mean and territorial toward Nomad, so we sent her on her feral way.

Nomad never left, though, and never wanted to. She stayed in and around the yard and carport, never wandering more than one or two houses away, which was how she got her name as a joke.

She chased some squirrels through the trees in her youth, but soon realized that the endless cans of Friskies the humans supplied were easier to catch.

She got inside-the-house privileges when the weather turned colder and made herself at home.

Nomad had so many human qualities that she was as much an easygoing roommate as a pet. She rarely ran and didn’t seem to care one way or the other about playing. We got her to chase a laser pointer around once in a while, but she quickly figured out the game and gave up after a few minutes.

She often kept to herself, curled up in a closet or a corner happily sleeping the day away. She had a dozen spots in the house she rotated around. We’ll be finding her fur for decades.

In the morning she’d run into the bathroom and wait for me to lay down my shower towel so she could lay on it and get petted. At night she would climb into our bed, lay on my chest, and stay there until we were asleep. Then, 30 minutes later, she’d wake me up to go outside and stand guard in the carport until dawn.

My wife Shannon and I often made jokes about Nomad’s chubby physique and her “primordial pouch” under her belly that swayed to and fro as she walked. Earlier this summer, though, we noticed Nomad wasn’t eating as much and she was getting skinnier.

By August she’d stopped eating altogether besides a nibble or two. We kept putting food in front of her, hoping and praying for a miraculous recovery that wasn’t happening. Several vet visits didn’t help, and by early September it was becoming obvious nothing would.

We did what we could to make her happy and comfortable over the past week. She got to hang out in the fenced-in yard — her other favorite outdoor happy place, once she discovered it after a few years — and slept with us in the bed one last time. She got some time in her favorite closet, snoozed in the bathroom, and watched TV with me for a couple of hours.

Even though I knew it was the right and humane thing to do, taking her to the vet’s office on Wednesday morning was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. She’d been part of the family for 11 years and always will be.

Was there still some hope? Did we do all we could? Were we betraying her? Did she understand what was happening to her and what we had to do?

I can only hope we answered all of those questions correctly and made the right decisions.

Shannon and I took turns holding her in the vet’s office until the time came. Nomad purred in approval right up until the end. I want to think it was a thank you for making her life a good one. I only wish we could tell her one more time how good she made ours.

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Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post’s sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post’s sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper’s 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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