On the 6th of March 2026, we lost our special boy, Sebastian. This page is intended as a memorial to preserve his memory and share his story for others.
We adopted him at an estimated age of 7 years-old in October 2020, from the Bluebell Ridge (RSPCA) Cat Rehoming Centre.
We don't know much about Sebastian's earlier life prior to our adoption of him. What little we know is that there was difficulty finding him a home, resulting in him being moved between multiple shelters, and he had at some stage been a stray. He had also been through an operation to remove a growth in his throat while at the shelter.
When my partner first visited him at the shelter, it was quite evident Sebastian didn't enjoy the environment he was in. He was biting and scratching, much to the concern of staff (likely thinking this would put us off adopting him).
But despite their concern, it didn't dissuade us in the least; we adopted him and welcomed him home anyway.
When we first brought him home, he was unsurprisingly incredibly anxious about us. It didn't take him too long to pick a safe space he felt comfortable in, which was strangely enough under our bed (this remained a favourite safe spot for him until the time of his passing).
I quite vividly remember the worst possible thing happening when he was welcomed into our home; the fire alarm randomly went off. Bloody typical.
Initially when he was first introduced home, while he enjoyed being around people, he didn't enjoy being fussed so much. The number of times either of us ended up being randomly bitten or scratched was, a lot. Particularly when he felt you weren't giving him enough attention.
Ironically, give him too much attention, and he'd also bite or scratch. It was a bit of a balancing act.
This was a trait he certainly improved on but he always remained a bit of a grumpy bastard at times. We suspected this might have been part of why he struggled to find a permanent home in the past.
Not long after being adopted, the same month as a matter of fact, he was at least gradually cosying up to us and even sleeping on our laps. Not something he continued to do later in life, perhaps because he'd often almost slip off!
He always loved the company of other people. If we had strangers over, he wasn't shy about meeting them and he liked the limited attention. If you headed out into the garden or almost anywhere in the house, he was almost always guaranteed to follow you.
There are quite a number of other cats in the area we live in, all roaming around and asserting their dominions. It seemed quite a few had staked a claim to our garden prior to Sebastian's arrival.
Depending on the cat, sometimes he would sit and ignore while they tried to intimidate him, but sometimes he would get into some really bad scuffles with them.
Following an intense altercation in some bushes on one occasion, he chased another cat at full speed into the neighbours before they continued their scuffle out of sight. That other cat certainly seemed to have learnt its lesson given we didn't see it again. He really had it in for that other cat though - only time I'd ever seen him chase one down purposefully like that.
On another occasion, he managed to get a claw stuck in his eye following an altercation which required a trip to the vets. He seemed rather calm about it besides struggling to open his eye properly, but when the vet showed us what came out it was quite surprising.
This continued on and off for a while but ultimately it seems the other cats eventually learned to respect his space. So he essentially claimed victory and dominion over our garden. And house. And probably the neighbours gardens too.
We used to have a unit up against the fence in the garden. He would often use this to jump up onto our neighbours roof (we're attached) and then plod over into their garden to explore.
It was a quite a regular route for him and it was right outside the office window. We would see him jump up and head off, and see him come back hours later.
One of the times he hopped onto this, I opened up our bedroom window from the second floor and he started trying to make his way up our roof up to me while meowing for my attention. Fortunately he quickly realised it wasn't such a good idea and turned around.
Unfortunately we did eventually have to get rid of the unit, though he found alternate routes through the bushes.
Even later we had to set up a new fence where the unit was, as the existing fence collapsed. I remember, because he can be incredibly obnoxious at times, we were trying to lift the new fence into place and what better place for him to stand than directly under it.
Probably not the smartest little bugger at times.
When we had a neighbour move in, they mistook him as a stray (for whatever reason) and were feeding him. Until they decided to ask after the fact whether or not he was ours.
Subsequently, when he didn't get more food than was good for him and pestering us wasn't working, he would head on over to the neighbours place - I like to imagine he was stalking them, tapping on their windows and leaving strange messages.
More likely I wouldn't be too surprised if they continued to give him treats.
If you've read up to this point, I really appreciate it and hope you enjoyed what I had to share. Overtime I'll likely update this page on and off as other things spring to mind that might be worth sharing.
It's weird to think we only had him for little more than 5 years, and that was a fraction of his life. Sometimes I wonder what his life was really like for him before he met us. From what little we know, it was certainly eventful.
I know we did a good job giving him a great home until the end though.
Even nearing a month later, it feels very raw but thinking back on these moments we had does seem to help. We're not going to forget about him.