The death of a cat

I called him Little Bit because he seemed so small when I took him in seven years ago. The runt of a litter from a feral mother who just kept having litters until the offspring were so weak they died at birth. The name changed as the cat grew and so he became Bitzski, and was hardly affectionate except when I sat down to watch TV, at which point, he climbed into my lap. He ate when he was supposed to eat, went to the toilet where he was supposed to, and stayed out of sight other times until Saturday afternoon when he started to cry, and I couldn't figure out why.
Taking him to the vet this morning, I was told he had a large tumor and would not survive. So Bitzski and I parted ways, he still crying as the drugs put him to a sleep from which he would never wake up.