The twelve-year-old maintained an unbroken vigil beside the kitchen island until the very end.
EVANSTON, Ill. — Barnaby, 12, a longtime resident of the linoleum strip just left of the oven, died Tuesday of natural causes while still holding out hope for a dropped meatball. Born in 2012, Barnaby devoted his life to domestic surveillance, maintaining an unbroken vigil beneath the dining table through eleven Thanksgiving dinners and a chaotic 2021 kitchen remodel. Colleagues remembered him as a tireless sentinel who never once allowed a shredded cheddar fragment to go to waste, holding the neighborhood record for quickest response time to a dropped ice cube.
He possessed a boundless, inspiring optimism that if he just stared at my husband's fork long enough, gravity would eventually do the right thing.
He is survived by a frayed rope knot, a half-buried tennis ball in the azalea bushes, and the FedEx driver he firmly believed was sent to kill them all. Services will be held in the backyard, near the good dirt.