Inigo at 13 years old
I’ve been composing this eulogy for Inigo “Monster” McGuire (aka “Inie” aka “Monster Monster” aka “Inigo Montoya McGuire”) in my head over the last couple of months. It becomes the dark moment my brain drifts to when I would see him only eat a little bit of his food or burrow himself under the covers because he was losing weight and we kept the house too cold for the little guy. In my heart, it’s the sort of thing you desperately wish will never be needed. In my mind, I know that our furry friends’ lives are always shorter than we would like. We will most likely outlive them.
Today has been hard even if I could see it coming. Today, April 30, 2025, is the day that my wife and I had to make the best decision for our little guy. It is one of the hardest things I’ve had to do and no amount of my rational side telling me it was time to help ease his pain will prevent my heart from being broken.
Adoption
Inie’s story begins with us making a similar decision for our first cat, Cleo. He didn’t know it yet, but through Courtney and my shared grief over Cleo we realized the house was far too quiet without an animal in it. Two weeks later we decided to journey to Crabapple Vet’s adoption day… you know, just to take a look.
Famous last words.
The joke is that when we saw those impossibly small orange kittens, the ones named Cauldron (Westley) and Goblet (Inigo), that we got to see Westley sleep. Apparently being adopted wasn’t a big priority for him, but it was for Inigo. I can’t remember exactly what show he put on for us, but it was more than enough to declare those two cats were coming home with us at the first opportunity.
When it came time to name the two of them, we went to one of our favorite movies: The Princess Bride. We decided on Westley and Inigo, which considering their epic battles around the house, couldn’t have been more appropriate. I sometimes wonder if they played the whole “I’m not really left handed bit” with each other.
Youth
Early on Inigo was a little bit more self-sufficient… which is a nice way to say he was a little bit “anti-social”. Which probably isn’t entirely fair, because he was always in the room with us. He was on the back of the couch, or in a window sill looking out into the back or side yard. He really was never too far from his humans, but he was not a lap cat!
And he and his brother did all the things you would expect litter mates to do. They would play fight, they would snuggle in a sunbeam during nap time, and during our morning routine, they would frequently ask to be let on the window sill behind the bathtub. Nearly every morning I would see two silhouettes against the blinds as they’d watch the wildlife in the side yard go about their days.
But he did like to be near us (even if he wasn’t a lap cat). He wanted to be just beside us or behind your head on the couch. He loved his humans even while he allowed Westley to do most of the lap sitting or sleeping in the bed with Mom and Dad.
He loved to paw at the door to the bathroom when I was in there. I’d hear a little scratching happening, open the door slightly, and he would come to just check on me and the business I might be doing. He didn’t stay long… normally just enough for a quick drive by and then out the door again. And lord knows if you had shut the door because that would start to stress him out a little bit. No, just a fast “what are you doing” and then “bye”.
His favorite toy early on was a Chick-fil-a cow that he would snuggle with. He did this for the first couple of years from time to time. Cutest thing ever.
His favorite activity was the laser pointer. Holy crap, he was a maniac about that thing. He knew what it was from the click. And he would chase that thing around until he was panting. If you got it on the carpet, you could hear him digging those claws in so as to make quick starts and stops.
Our friend, Rebecca, got us an automatic laser pointer which we dubbed “The Babysitter”. He loved that thing too, until he figured out it was a robot controlling it. Then it lost a little bit of its luster.
He was my writing partner. Courtney has many pictures of him sitting on the desk directly in front of me, laying on my arms just enough to make sure I didn’t go anywhere, but not so much that I couldn’t keep typing.
I hope he knew that he was my muse on many of those nights. Inspiring whatever nonsense story I was writing. He also helped me keep my butt in the chair for long enough to get my words in!
We Stole 7 Years!
Then, in 2018, he stopped eating. He was a bigger boy at this point (don’t call him fat!), but liver hepatitis is something that when he’s overweight and not getting the right types of food, it can cause a cat to just stop eating.
We didn’t know what to do. We did know that a cat not eating can spiral out of control very quickly, so we took him to our vet, Donna, and went over options. We tried medicine. We tried forced feeding (which was somewhat nightmare inducing). And when all of that didn’t work, Donna told us there was one last thing we could try:
A feeding tube.
It would be something that we’d need to feed him a mixture of food every 6 hours. It would mean having him stare daggers at me as Courtney held him and I pumped the food into him. I’d never heard him growl before, but I heard it many times during the next 6 weeks.
It crushed me. I knew, in my heart of hearts, that this cat, if he survived, would hate me. But I still did it because he deserved his shot at more years of life. Cleo had only lived 7-8 years and we only had him for 8+ at this point.
No, that wasn’t an option!
I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but most nights Inigo didn’t sleep in the bed with us. He’d hang out until the lights went out before finding his way to the couch or maybe one of the upstairs’ beds. It was Westley who would climb into my arms at night, and the two of us would drift off.
But one night, as I was just beginning to drift off, I felt a cat jump up onto the bed and move across to where I was sleeping. I put out an arm expecting to feel Westley’s form collapse into his spot. Instead I felt a smaller cat, with a bandage around his neck, laying down beside me. There may have even been a slight purr, but that didn’t matter because I knew my little guy may not understand everything that was happening to him, but he understood we were fighting for him as hard as we could.
A couple of weeks later I got a video from Courtney while I was at work where it showed Inigo eating on his own for the first time in over 6 weeks. I definitely cried in my office that day.
We STOLE almost 7 years for him that summer!
I’d tell him that every so often, “Hey man, we really did it. We stole the last year, two years… etc. And we’ve enjoyed every minute!”
A near death experience will change anyone, and it was no different for Inigo. He suddenly was a true and proper Lap Cat (with a capital “L” and “C”). He started snuggling with one of us in the bed pretty much every night. Suddenly all four of us were in the bed together.
The Covid Years were a scary and unsure time. Courtney and I were lucky enough to be able to work from home, which also meant we were able to spend more time with our cats. And they loved it. One would be upstairs with Mom and the other would be downstairs with Dad. Then they would tag out and swap places. If a break was needed, they were more than ready to lay beside you and help you relax.
I sometimes wonder if they ever wondered what was the reason behind all this quality time. I do know they appreciated it, and I know they helped us keep our sanity during some trying times.
Losing Westley
When Westley passed away at the end of 2021, I was wrecked. Westley had chosen me as his human. And I often said that I’ve never in my life had a cat who loved me as much as he did. Once he was gone, everything fell to Inigo. He suddenly had to take care of both of us.
He stepped up immediately by suddenly becoming vocal for the first time in his life. For his first 12 years, I feel like he may have meowed less than 100 times. I’m not sure if he’d been fine with Westley doing all the talking his whole life, but without his brother there – he had a whole mess of things to say. Whether it was random talks, reminding us of feeding time, or just letting us know Mrs. Brigsby (a squirrel who lives in our yard) was back out there… he didn’t hold back.
The other thing that started around this time was The Paw.
The Paw was what he’d do if he wanted your attention. I’d be sitting at my desk working and suddenly I’d feel this little paw on my leg. It would have been the cutest thing in the world… if he hadn’t extended his nails every time. So it went from, “Awww Cute” to “OW!”.
I admit sometimes getting mad because he didn’t have much patience. “Wait a second” was not in his vocabulary.
As time went on, and the arthritis started making his hind legs not want to let him jump anymore. So I picked him up and put him on the desk beside me. He’d lay on the work laptop, absorbing the heat from that and enjoying the head scratches from me.
He healed us. That’s what he did for us. When we were having our worst days because of his brother’s passing, Inigo showed how much strength he truly had. And in so many ways we realized that was his super power. He was strong in will. He was strong in his love for his humans.
The Knuckleheads
Inigo and his nephews
About a year later, his life changed again when we adopted two orange boy cats (Sawyer and Nox). We kept them seperate from the old man at first, trying to make sure to ease them into meeting. Hoping it would be a smooth one.
It was not.
Inigo wasn’t looking to have two new nephews and let the little boys know it through a series of growls. When they wanted to play, he stayed away, and made sure they stayed away from him. I think there were plenty of looks at us with him saying “Why in the world do you bring these knuckleheads into this house?”
I worried they would never become friends.
Then one day I caught him and little Nox cuddling on the bed. He immediately got up as if to say “Oh, this… he can and slept beside me. I didn’t know he was there.”
Slowly, he accepted them. Soon he was tusselling with them. Showing them how to hunt the laser pointer.
I should have never doubted his capacity for love.
Weirdly, he became a little less vocal with Sawyer around. Sawyer can talk with the best of him, and I think Inigo realized he didn’t need to carry the conversation.
This Last Year
This last year has been on the harder side. Early last summer we noticed his appetite was out of control. He would constantly tell us he was hungry with his voice or with the Paw. Courtney called it Ravenous, and she wasn’t wrong.
Turns out it was a Thyroid issue. Daily medicine was now needed.
One thing I haven’t mentioned is how bad a medicine taker my little boy was. If it was in pill form, he was a master at not swallowing the damn thing. As soon as he was back on the floor he would spit it out. We tried everything from blowing slightly in his face, rubbing his chin to try and get him to swallow, hiding it in something tasty… nothing worked.
Luckily this was a liquid form (we requested that specifically). Twice a day we would give him the meds, and we started to see his appetite start to subside (in a good way). However, this showed the Vet that he had Kidney Disease. We changed his food, but the illness didn’t care. And by the beginning of this year we were starting on IVs for fluids every 3rd day.
We were happy to do it though. He was our fighter. He was our little boy. And we owed it to him to Steal as much time as possible for him.
I’ve said that it could be 100 years with an animal and it wouldn’t be enough. I was just hoping for a few more weeks, maybe a couple of more months. So, yeah, we were going to do all we could.
The arthritis got worse. He kinda hobbled as he walked. He couldn’t jump. We bought little stairs so he could climb up on the couch with us or get into the bed with us and after a couple of tries he took to those like nobody’s business.
Through it all, he was still him. He still had that sparkle in his eyes. He still moved to greet you at the door, even if he was a little slower in doing it. He still loved us and made sure we took time to hang out with him on the couch. All it took was Courtney to get a blanket out and he would immediately be in her lap, ensuring whatever To Do List item she had planned would need to be put off for another hour or two.
We recently replaced our deck and now have a section of screened in porch. One of our reasons for that was to have a place where not only could we be outside and enjoy it, but also a place so the cats could come out and “be outside”.
The little boys took to it immediately. But I wondered how Inigo would like it. Of course, he loved it as well. I could hold him up and let him look out of those windows. He’d feel the breeze on his little face. He loved it so much he started demanding going outside.
This Week
Two days ago, on Monday, Courtney noticed he was dragging one of his back legs. It was worse than what we thought might have been worsening arthritis, which made us wonder if he had a seizure or something. We spent much of the morning holding him on the porch and talking.to him and each other. A lot of crying as we were beginning to realize our time might be up with him.
We saw the Vet and she said there were still a few things we could do. A shot in his legs had helped before, so we could do that. In addition, we could put him on pain meds. And increase his fluids intake to every day.
We had a plan! My heart soared a little bit. I knew we didn’t have long, but maybe, just maybe we could squeeze a little more time.
Just maybe.
The pain meds make him a bit loopy, and he can’t really keep his balance on them. We tried to feed him and very little was consumed. We knew he needed sleep, so we bundled him up in blankets.
We went to the Pearl Jam concert on Tuesday night with the plan to see how he was doing when we got back. The pain meds would be mostly out of his system by that point, so maybe he would eat something, and then we could give him a smaller dose for the night.
When we got home I spotted him first in the middle of the living room floor. I, of course, thought he had passed, but his eyes found me and reached out to me in between little twitches. We scooped him up and held him the whole night, alternating between who had him, talking to him and letting him know it was alright. That we had him. We were there.
We had him.
He’d been strong for us his whole life… Now it was time for us to be strong for him.
We were somewhat hoping he would pass in the night, at home, surrounded by love, but when that didn’t happen, we made sure we were in the room when they put him to sleep. I held him in my arms and told him I loved him over and over.
Surrounded by Love.
Over the past few days Courtney and I have talked about him. How the only way we know how to heal is to talk to family and friends and share his story with others. Just the act of telling all of this is my own way to try and heal a little of the broken heart.
His superpower was strength, and he was stronger than either of us in so many ways. He taught me a cat can have that strength and just needs his humans to believe in him and we can STEAL years for him.
Every second I spent with him was worth all the pain now.
It may be silly, but I hope the rainbow bridge is real. I hope that within minutes of him leaving us, Westley met him and took him to where our pets play and wait for us to join them. I know he told Westley about what had happened in the last few years. How they had little nephews who were knuckleheads, but he still loved them.
I love you Inigo McGuire. You were truly the BEST BOY. I will miss you, and hope that I’ll see you again one day.
***
John McGuire is the writer of the sci-fi novel: The Echo Effect.
He is also the creator/author of the steampunk comic The Gilded Age. If you would like to purchase a copy, go here!
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His other prose appears in The Dark That Follows, Hollow Empire, Tales from Vigilante City, Beyond the Gate, and Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows.
He can also be found at www.johnrmcguire.com
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