In 2014, Kevin Drum, one of the first – and one of the best – political bloggers was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. Over the next dozen years, he shared his health struggles with the same laconic sense of humor, precision of facts and charts that he used for all manner of observation, from politics through travel and photography to just about any topic.

And, of course, cats. He was the prototypical cat blogger, settling on a Friday afternoon cat post for the last few years.

He checked into the hospital in February and things looked grim. He got a little better and then started spiraling. Here’s his last post:

On Monday, his wife Marian posted that he had passed on Friday, March 7th.

I first ran across him – how? – when he was CalPundit, followed him to Washington Monthly and to Mother Jones. He then retired, set up a WordPress site called Jabberwocking and kept on blogging.

He will be missed.