Titus was born with character. He had a LOT of character. And like anyone with a lot of character, he wasn’t an “easy” cat to like. He’d had a traumatic childhood. He’d lost his mother too soon… If you put in a bit of effort you could understand why he was the way he was.
But like a lot of “difficult” characters, once you knew him you loved him, not for anything he pretended to be, because Titus never pretended, but for what he was, a difficult, often grumpy, feisty, but incredibly faithful friend. So, yes, not having a vast vocabulary to communicate with, Titus bit and bit often. It’s why we nicknamed him Typhus. But Titus/Typhus rarely bit hard, and never enough to injure anyone. It was just the only way he had of saying “no”.
He was the most present cat I’ve ever known. At any moment of the day, whether you were eating breakfast, watching TV or going to bed, you could look up and Titus would be there.
The other cats all come and go, depending on what’s going on outside, on what’s out there to kill. But Typhus didn’t care. If you were there he’d sit next to you. He’d prefer you didn’t touch him, but he wanted to be with you. All the time. It’s how he showed his love.
A friend who claims to speak telepathically to cats informed us he wanted to be called Starlight, and so we tried it for a while, just in case it would improve his character. It didn’t, but we still called him Starlight from time to time. I had a vague feeling that he did actually like it.
And now he’s gone. And the sofa’s empty because the other cats are all outside killing things. So we miss him. And we’re sad. And Starlight is wherever cats go when they leave those that love them behind. Perhaps they get reincarnated as other cats. Or perhaps they go into a big pool of soul that gets reused in some other living form. I don’t know. I’m just convinced that all that complexity, and character, and soul, and love, doesn’t just vanish. Perhaps it turns into light beams and goes racing through the stars. It would be a fitting end for a cat called Starlight.
Goodbye Titus/Typhus/Starlight. We miss you already. RIP.