Simon got instantly in love with a basket as his favorite sleeping place

Simon liked sleeping in many places, and always tried out boxes and cartons we brought home. One day we had brought home a round basket when buying spices in a shop. It was round, 2-3 decimeter in diameter, with 1 decimeter high edges. The edges was leaning out. It was a plaited basked. Simon decided for this one as his new sleeping place. And from then on, this remained his main sleeping place. This had not happened before. Simon often decided for boxes as his sleeping place, but only for a day or a few days, even less often for a whole week. But this basket was different. From the day he took it, he kept it. We moved it a little so it was not in the way (he had taken it when it was in the middle of the floor). We placed it in the center of the house, in the upper hallway of the house. It had the kitchen door to the left, living room to the right, the stair up behind it to the left, the stair down to my work room behind it to the right, and the hallway down to the lower hallway and the door out in front. Truly in the center of the house. No one could move far without having to pass the basket and Simon.

In the beginning we laughed about Simon trying to squeeze his big body into the basket. He was having to have a hind leg, and often a head outside it. It looked uncomfortable, but he was in heaven. This was the two or three last years of Simon's life, and in the end, before he died, he had gone from being this very big 8.5 kilo white forest cat, to being a small cat of 5.5 kilos, and did actually fit and snug well into the basket.

Also after getting his loved basket, Simon still moved around amongst his different sleeping places. He did occasionally try out a new carton as well. But his love for the basket remained, and he always returned to that one as a sleeping place, and as an inside resting placer from which he had a good overview. He did not grow tired of it. And it was in the basket he finally died. I brought the basket to the hospital where he was being taken care of. He was very weak, he could hardly move. Even then, he did recognize it. With his last physical effort in life, he took the last steps he would ever take, and moved into it. It was hard for him, he stumbled, he had difficulty getting over its edges, he almost ended up with one of his hind legs outside, and he had a difficulty lying down in it. Yet, he went into it and laid down. There, finally he laid at rest, and took his last breaths in life. Simon had entered his last rest, and will no more exist in this life in that shape. I hope there is a cat heaven and that he gets there. He was cremated with his basket, and is now resting under his favorite boxwood bush in the garden.