Mickey was a fantastic cat.

When I was ten years old, my favourite TV show was Lost. Just a few days after my eleventh birthday they would be auctioning off props from the show. Spending hours poring over the pdf catalogue with its full-colour photographs and 'hero' costumes was as close as I got to bliss. I could imagine owning Hurley's winning lottery ticket, or a big hunk of plane wreck, displaying it proudly in my bedroom for all to see. I made a longlist, then a shortlist, then reality set in, and my shortlist became a very very shortlist. Twelve cans of Dharma Initiative beer. Estimated sale price of $200-$300. I would hedge all my birthday bets on this piece of television history, lot 711.

A chance visit to the local pet store meant a change of plans. The healthy custom being to stop over and say hi to all the cats up for adoption. Well, on this day one of those cats had the same name as the cat in the book I was reading, and not a common one at that. Kismet. No more beer for my eleventh birthday. Beer can wait. This cat was coming home with me.

Subsequent visits with this cat proved, hmm, difficult. This cat was standoffish, aggressive. And while many of the finest cats are both of those things and much more, I found an even finer one. Or he found me. Yes, little Mickey kept finding his way purring on over to me, just begging to be picked up and cuddled. Yes, now entirely calmed were my desires for set dressings and paraphernalia. And the fortune I had called kismet had a new name, Mickey. Mickey was with us for just over fourteen years. He was a perfect cat by temperament, friendly and warm. He had his issues like we all do, prone to stinky ear infections and urinary problems, but my goodness he was an affectionate cat the whole way through.

It was a flare-up of an ongoing ear infection that brought him to the clinic where we discovered a growth behind his right ear, which progressed quickly. With freshly cleaned ears, he enjoyed lots of cuddles and treats in his last week. It was late at night, wrapped in a blanket, that he went to sleep in my arms. We all miss him dearly.