Twenty is very old for a cat! I'm glad he's still happy and healthy. I completely fall apart when I lose an animal too. Every time I wonder if it would be better not to have them, because getting so attached and then losing them is such a gut-wrenching thing, but I honestly don't think I could live without them. I'm happy to meet Merlin. I've seen pictures of Cleo, but I didn't know Merlin was your elder statescat.
Merlin says, g'day! :)
Yep, Merlin is the wise old man of the household and pretty much slinks around knowing he is the king of the domain. He's a good cat though, looks after Cleo and rules over us human's.
I agree, not having a pet would be very difficult. Moving forward we want to travel a lot more and it will be hard to do with pets considering Faith's mum is also getting older and will be unable to look after them when we go. Contemplating life without pets is a difficult thing. I'm not sure what we'll do but for now we have the old boy and bubah (Cleo) and we couldn't be without them.