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He rested his head on my hand, while my other hand gently held his paw.  I whispered "I love you" into his little ear.

I was helping Hermes' mother, Purrsephanie give birth to him and his four siblings.  There was Hera, the "fat, fluffy" one.  Lillian the "little, demure" one.  Champ, the runt.  And then there were Phillip and Hermes who, as kittens looked virtually identical.  We could tell them apart because Phillip had one ring on his little tail, while Hermes had two rings.

Soon, however, another difference between the two showed up.  Phillip was easy going and  laid back, while Hermes was....excited.  Each morning, when we took down the little barracade that kept the kittens in our spare bedroom, one of those kittens would bolt out as a white blur that bounced around the house.  We took to calling him "turbo".  But soon, it became apparent that we were going to keep little turbo and we re-christened him Hermes - the "messenger of the gods" in greek mythology.  His mother, Purrsephenie, was also named from greek mythology as was his "uncle" Zeus, so it seemed appropriate.

He was well-named.  His athletism and 16 pounds of pure muscle were daunting and sometimes made playtime....challenging.  He could have won a gold medal in the high-jump.  He once ate the entire string hanging down from the light in our closet......the bottom of which was 7 feet off the ground.  He would jump up, turn the handles and open any door in the house he found irksome.  When he needed some "alone time" he would regularly take naps on the top shelf of the highest cabinet in our kitchen.  

Being a siamese, Hermes had a beautiful, quirky, forceful, vocal personality.

He was obsessed with water.  We toyed with the idea of renaming him Poseidon (the greek god of the sea).  He would use his powerful voice to demand fresh water....about 12 times a day.  It was impossible to ignore him.  If we did, he would just go to the sink and push on the fixture until he turned the water on himself....at which point he would delight in playing, drinking and flinging water around.  All while saying, "you had your chance to get me fresh water."

He loved to nap.  He would talk to us, incessantly demanding that we lay down on the bed or sofa, and then he would comandeer our laps and go to sleep.  He would rest his head on my hand while he slept and put his paw on my other hand.  If I forgot, he would reach out and remind me by touching my hand.  I said, our "laps", but the truth is, he preferred PJ's lap.  His favorite activity was laying on PJ's lap while holding my hand as if to say "I love you too."   

Hermes was my buddy, but he adored PJ.  I would sometimes wake up at night and look over and seem him staring at her face, and, then,  he would reach up and gently caress her face with his paw.  I can't put into words how much that cat adored my wife.

Occassionally, however, he did want to be left alone.  If we and our friends were making too much noise in the living room, Hermes would walk up to the bedroom door, meow loudly a couple of times, and slam the door, as if to say, "Will you people please be quiet?"  That always illicited a hearty round of laughter.

If we left town for too many days in a row, he would ocassionally "punish" us by opening the drawers in our dresser and taking out all the clothes.  Hermes did not like to be without his humans.

We discovered quite by chance one day, while watching My Fair Lady that if you whistled the song "Wouldn't it be Loverly?", Hermes would come to you.  That became his song.  The lyric "Someone's head resting on my knee...warm and tender as he can be." always came to mind when Hermes was napping with us.  Like I said: Quirky.

When Hermes was five, one day he hid from us behind the bed.  I knew something was wrong.  We took him to the vet and it turns out he was blocked and his kidneys were shutting down.  The vet said, "Go home and pray, your cat's probably going to die."  For a week, he was close to death.  We got 2am calls saying that, against the odds, "he's still here."  I had to pick him up each day from the overnight clinic and take him to our regular vet and then shuttle him back each night.  In the mornings, we would sit outside the vet's office in my truck, Hermes, with tubes hanging out of him, and he would rest his head on my hand and hold my other hand with his paw.  I would whisper, "I love you", and he would watch the birds with great interest.  And he looked at me and said, "I can beat this, I'm going to live.  This is still fun."

And beat it he did.

When he was 15, we noticed he could hardly walk.  He had a torn ACL.  Fifteen's pretty old for a cat, but as Hermes recovered from surgery he rested his little head on my hand and held my other hand with his paw and again told me "this is still fun."

Hermes had three more good years.

After he turned 18, he began to slow down significantly.  In human terms, he was now in his 90's with arthritis in both knees.  There was not much jumping or running anymore, but there was still a lot of playing with water, napping on our laps, and purring. 

Then the vet found cancer in his leg.

"How long?" I asked.

"2 - 3 weeks"

He wasn't going to beat it this time.  A week later, Hermes stopped eating and even water no longer interested him.  We layed on the bed together and he put his paw on my hand and said, "This isn't fun anymore."

As he took his last breath, he rested his head on my hand, while my other hand gently held his paw.  I whispered "I love you" into his little ear. 

Hermes has moved on.  His body now rests under our big oak tree that serves as home to the birds he so loved to watch.  Superstition says that sparrows carry the souls of the dead to heaven, and a couple of hours after I buried Hermes under the oak tree, six sparrow babies emerged from the nest in our back patio and, one-by-one, flew to the oak tree where Hermes rests.  I like to think they took his soul to heaven where he truly is messenger to the gods now...the cat gods anyway.  And unlike the Hermes of mythology, our Hermes needs no golden-winged shoes to turn into a blur of motion.

I'm thankful his pain is gone now, although mine and PJ's runs even deeper than I imagined it would.

I miss you Hermes.  Godspeed, old friend.

When it's my time to cross over, I pray that I'll find myself with your little head resting on my hand and your paw in the other.  And then I'll know that I've made it to right place.  And I'll whisper, as I am right now, "I love you, Hermes."