I had a cat that looked exactly like yours...had him for about 11 years and to this day i still call him the world's best cat, his name was Rhett . (Yes, we did have a Scarlett but that is another story). Rhett would sleep next to me in the bed with his head on the pillow and we would hold paws....he would get up, go to the bathtub and t.t. down the drain, get a drink of water, get back in the bed and burb ! If the door bell rang he was the 1st there to see who it was. He would never let me read a book or the newspaper without him being in my lap....too, he would sit on the end table and slowly buy surely find some he could carefully slide off the table and watch it hit the floor. Sometimes I would place things there that I knew would get his attention. He died of stomach cancer and it almost killed me also. I still don't have another cat;, BUT, I will within the next few months, I'm looking around.
Thank your son for me for serving in Iraq; glad we have FB so that you can keep in touch with him.