The Life and Times of Major Tom

Born in Kagel Canyon in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in 2012, Major Tom was the only male kitten in a small feral cat colony. When he was about 6 weeks old, he walked up to James in the dirt driveway and put his tiny paw on James’ foot. He was little more than a skeleton. That night, we fed him ham. After he ate, his belly was so full but he suddenly had energy to play. When James and I went to bed, we made him a little fort with the cushions and blankets on our outside couch and tucked him in. He slept there for months and during the days, he’d beg to be let into the master by the sliding glass doors. Most days, I’d let him come in while James was at work.

When we moved out of Kagel Canyon and stayed with James’ parents for a couple months in 2013, we brought Major to their house. He stayed in their garage and kept to himself, only coming out when it was just me and James. In May of that year, we transported him and what belongings we could fit into my 2012 Scion tC and drove from Palmdale, California to Shreveport, Louisiana. There, Major Tom stayed with my dad, growing up primarily around my dad’s dogs Domino the sheltie and Roman the collie. He always acted more like a dog than a cat. Climbing trees, hunting prey, these things he never really learned. Till the end of his days, he’d run up to trees and look up their trunks waiting as though he would be magically carried up into its branches.

Over the next handful of years, James and I adopted two more cats, a newborn stray from the neighborhood named Cake and her half-brother Biscuit. When we moved from Louisiana Major Tom and his siblings were loaded into the car and taken back west to Colorado. He tolerated the long car ride so well, as usual. He also adjusted well to our new house, but he always preferred to stay close to either me or James. One of the first days we were walking around the yard, he went to roll in the dirt and started to roll down the hill. He was better traveled than most humans, having lived in three states and visited six.

Since he almost starved as a kitten, he always had food insecurity issues. At his heaviest, he weighed 32 lbs. He was put on a strict diet in 2018 which brought his weight down to 25 lbs. One day around 2023, Major Tom's diet started miraculously working. Of course it was actually hyperthyroidism. Later, this caused congestive heart failure.