It’s Tuesday October 22nd and we lost Mr. Divot today. To say it is a sad day is an understatement, he has been a part of our lives for 23 years.

Mr. Divot’s story starts in Hamilton many years ago, when he was born as one of a number of an unwanted litter of kittens, that were dumped into the food court of a Hamilton mall when the pet shop would not except the kittens at only six weeks of age. At the time Laurie and I worked with a technician who’s son was doing a high school co-op at that pet shop. And as wrong as this will sound all the co-op students were told they should get one of the kittens and take it home, so his son did just that, much to the dismay of his father. But Frank knew a lady he worked with that loved cats, so a plan was hatched to get Miss Laurie and this kitten together, which obviously worked as he had planned. So this little tuxedo kitten came to live at our house, the name divot, came from his size, about four inches long, the size of an average golf divot. And on another note anyone who knew me would tell you that I was not a cat person, oh I have mellowed over time because of Mr. Divot, as for some unexplainable reason this kitten took to me. In fact the first night at our place he crawled up on my shoulder and nuzzles into my neck, pretty hard to resist that even for a tough guy.

So Mr. Divot became a part of our family when we lived in a small cottage at the end of Fifty Point road in Winona, and then moved with us to Fonthill where we lovingly referred to him as “Mr. Divot of the Fonthill Divot’s” a role he pulled off with true grace. Being an indoor only kitty, we moved into our house in Fonthill in December of 2000 and it had a sunroom that faced south and had multiple patio doors that let in so much sun, it would almost get too hot to sit in, but this became Mr. Divots favourite place he would lay in the sun for hours at a time. This was not an all season room so on a sunny winter day he would claw at the door to get into the sun room, and after spending a couple of minutes in the cold he would want back into the house. As we added a deck onto the back of our house Mr. Divot would occasionally venture out to the deck to sit on a lap but was never allowed to wander more that a few feet from the deck, as time went on he would try to get more exploring in but was still what I would call a scaredy-cat and would dash back to the door with any noise or movement.

As we redid the basement an addition of a natural gas fireplace, laying in front of the fireplace on a winter day until he would be too hot to touch was his go to winter spot, with a basement window being the place in the sun when the fireplace was not on. Of course there was never a shortage of cat toys in Mr. Divots toy box but there were a few favourites, a few were a little fluff ball about the size of a cotton ball in any number of colours, in fact an evening ritual has to find a fluff ball and carry it through the house all the time meowing until he would bring it to our bedroom before jumping onto our bed where he would settle in for the night. Others were just a pipe cleaners that Miss. Laurie would make into a spring shape, he would carry it around and play with it for hours, and he also had a little catnip triangular bag that he would throw off his cat post as the humans would retrieve and throw back to the top of the post, he had us well trained. And the most recent was a hard cat-nip ball that he liked to bat about the coach, we went through a few of those as the didn’t stand up well to outside forces like slides or such.

When we decided two years ago to travel, as concerned as we were about his age the vet gave Mr. Divot a clean bill of health and he moved into the role of an exploring kitty, very well as he would like to get out of the coach and go for what we would call a walk-about, so he has explored a number of provinces and states 5 provinces and 28 states in total. And even went for a walk-about yesterday where he met his first chicken, as he aged he became even braver and nothing seemed to scare him anymore, so it is with a heavy heart that we have said goodbye to such an amazing creature that has enriched our home and lives and leaves such a gapping whole in our hearts as we go forward.