We’re about to lose the second member of our pack in one week. He was always “my handsome boy.”

We’re going to have another death in the family. His name is Mickey. Thing is, you can’t control the aging thing. My wife got three feral cats all at once. They’re all 13 now, except for the beauty who died earlier. We got Molly, not expecting that she would outlive all our other greys. We plucked Eloise off the side of the road about eight years ago, when the vets told us she was three or four. Izzie the Bengal is at least nine. We’re looking at the end of our pet lives across the board.

I was always the Scottish pessimist, my wife the Irish optimist. Our last two young’uns are Elliott and Raebert. Both less than five years old. But Psmith was less than six and my wife and I are both tired of tears. She won’t look when I show her adoptable greyhounds after I visit the empty space where Molly used to live.

The one who isn’t giving up is Raebert. He refuses. Absolutely. He insists on ministering to Mickey. He licks and licks and licks and licks — and licks — until we banish him from the cat’s presence altogether.

I feel both ways about it. He fixed my glued together eye with a single tongue swipe and he’s convinced he can fix Mickey by laving the facial tumor with the magical Deerhound tongue, so obsessively that we’ve had to banish him to the bedroom. Do we sound crazy?

Let me stress this: Mickey is not dead. He is unquestionably the toughest cat who ever lived, nine lives mythology notwithstanding. He should have been dead a week ago. But he WILL NOT SURRENDER. I told my wife I need a jeweller’s loup to see him breathing. He has a tumor on his face. He cannot eat or drink. What does he do? He lives.

At this point I’m relying on old mythology. I wish it were more than mythology.

I’ve loved this cat as much as I love my heart dogs. He breaks my heart.

P.S. Mickey just died. Bravest single consciousness I ever knew. Love, love, love him.

So why was Raebert so obsessive? Here’s a pic you need to explain.