Sorry I haven't written about it before, but it was just hard to face.
Sammy was the most truly "conservative" cat I've seen. He hated changes of any type; changes in the place, changes in the way you held him, changes in the location of his bowls. I loved him, but he was always somewhat stand-offish, it just wasn't in him to be a personal-contact kind of cat. He put up with it, but I don't think he ever really enjoyed it.
After Amy died, he pined for a long time; he didn't eat well and lost weight. Finally he came down sick. Amy's loss was a change he couldn't accept, I guess.