Oliver Rees Obituary (2025)

15 years ago, my brother and nephew found a little black and white, kitten, with a black beard, roaming the street. They ended up bringing him home and as things end up going, my dad didn't want another cat in the house. Steve and I bought our first home the fall of 2010, I told my mom that Steve and I would love to have Oliver become a member of our family. So, along with all of our things we had in storage, in OR, they drove down to UT with him. We had never met Oliver before, but my mom said that he was spicy. She wasn't wrong. He wouldn't let us touch him very often, only for a split second at a time. He was an absolute hellion, and we honestly weren't sure if we were the right home for him. We never gave up on him though. Out of the three pets we had at the time, he fell in love with our dog, Wilson. Always wanting to be around him, cuddling with Wilson, giving him love. When we lost Wilson, Oliver would roam the house, crying for him. It was horrible. Then we got Copper and after a while; Oliver found another friend. He always loved hanging out with the dogs, strutting around the house with them, rubbing up against them and giving them head butts, or sleeping with them. He was one of the boys. When Charlie was 3 years old, he picked Oliver up and declared that Oliver was his kitty. I kind of felt that situation was karma, after the years of insanity Oliver put us through. I am so glad I took a photo of that moment, 6-7 years ago. He never tried to claw or bite Charlie, even when we had to remind Char to be soft. After 4-5 years, I got to the point that Oliver would finally let me love on him, he loved having his ears rubbed and his chin scratched. But he had his limit, which if you went over, ended up with your hand being bitten. That also eventually stopped, for the most part.. haha He loved being sweet talked and told how handsome he was. He would even cuddle with us, every once in awhile. Oliver always was escaping outside, we couldn't keep him in, even in the snow. There were a few times he went out when it was freezing, then high tailed it right back inside. He loved laying outside in the sun, in our driveway and if we had gone somewhere, he'd slowly move out of the way on our return to the driveway. He did make us worry a few times, when he got out, thankfully he always turned back up. Oliver LOVED his food, the dog's food, the other cats' food, our food and even the neighbor cats' food. I even talked to the neighbor about it once and she laughed, saying she didn't even notice him because her cats looked so similar to him. The last few weeks of his life, we weren't sure what was going on. He was diagnosed with diabetes, a few days before he passed away. We took him into the vet after noticing that he'd stopped cleaning himself and he looked like he'd lost some weight. He was also walking a little slower, maybe just a bit funny. On Friday the 18th, he stopped eating, later that night he wouldn't drink any water. He passed away from a seizure on the 20th of April. Oliver was greatly loved and will be greatly missed. We all loved him so much and his death has caused a large void in our family