With a broken heart, I say farewell to Tybalt, my intrepid and beautiful travel companion.
Tybalt captured my heart when I lived in Oman, with this picture posted on Facebook. He was looking for a new home and he looked so defeated. I just jumped into my Jeep and brought him to our home and our hearts.
He loved and was loved immediately.
He was fond of helping Mazin with his fishing gear.
And he often relaxed in the strangest of places.
He especially loved to go camping with me.
I only had to jingle my Jeep keys and Tyb raced to jump in. We camped all over Oman together.
I typically tried to stop where there were some trees because Tyb loved to climb.
When he saw me packing to leave for Canada, he insisted on coming, flying 30 hours without complaint. He seemed relieved to have his own suitcase.
Tyb and I took up residence in Ben, our Roadtrek campervan, but to Tyb, it was another Jeep and it was home.
Together, we drove across Canada both ways, the only Omani cat to travel from Pacific to Atlantic and back.
We loved visiting the homes of my friends who treated him so specially.
He was special, so smart and beautiful and fearless. He often looked at me like he was about to speak.
He was a star. I have so many lovely memories – how he sometimes reached out to touch me while I was driving, how he indicated I should make a cave in the warm blankets so he could snuggle his wet and cold body next to mine, how he slept near my face when he was feeling guilty for staying out too late.
One night in late May, he went out to ramble, and he just never returned. Tybalt always, always returned to Ben, and I waited for 10 days. I know that if he had been able to, he would have come home, so I have to think he is waiting for me in camperJeep heaven.
Farewell, my precious Omani beauty with a Shakespearian name and a beduoin soul. The stories he could tell….
#kcbarker - photoblogger 