I Once Caught a Cubby Cat. . . .

While suffering through our first bout of Covid this May, I saw a cat rescue's photo of a cream-colored kitten and began babbling to Mike, "LOOK at her!  Oh my goodness!  If she were mine, I'd hold her on my shoulder all day long!  I'd call her 'Cubby' and just cuddle her all her day!"  She was blind in one eye and missing the other.  I wanted her as soon as I saw her.  I had really actually thought, "That's my cat" as soon as I saw her, but I said nothing to Mike about wanting to apply to adopt her.  We hadn't even discussed getting another cat in the soon-to-be-two-years since Stuffed's death.  Having a new one somehow didn't even seem like a possibility. 

A month passed and I hadn't been able to stop thinking about this fuzzy little soul.  Was she scared?  Was she lonely?  Did people cuddle her?  She was blind:  Was she safe?  She was just a baby!  On the morning of June 23rd, I woke from a dream in which we'd adopted Cubby.  (She was "Cubby" to me from the start; The rescue called her something else.)  The plot of the dream was lost to me upon waking, but Cubby had been ours.  This was the two-year anniversary of Stuffed's death, and I took it as a sign that we were meant to go for it.  More than a month had passed since I'd seen the rescue's last update on her, so it seemed likely that she'd already been adopted, but I emailed the group anyway to tell them we wanted her.  And I took it on faith that we would somehow be the ones to get her, just like in my dream, and without waiting to hear otherwise, I ordered two aqua gingham collars--one kitten-size and one for her to grow into--a red heart-shape name tag and a special needs tag that stated she was blind, I began reading articles and a couple books about taking care of blind cats, and I ordered a picture of her to keep beside Stuffed's on the table between Mike's and my chairs.  I went ahead and paid the adoption fee and bought kitten food and a few catnip mice to start off her toy collection here.  And I waited to hear back from the rescue.  And waited.  And waited.  I babbled even more feverishly to Mike about this kitten, I prayed about it, I texted him about it while he was at work, I wrote in my journal about it, I willed an email to come or the phone to ring and waited some more.  At one point while Mike listened and looked at me pityingly, I started crying halfway through saying, "It's okay, I know I'm not going to be the one who gets her," surprising even myself with how gutted I felt at the thought.  But almost simultaneously, I would think, "How could this NOT be my cat???  Look at her!"  It was every bit as odd as it seems.

The rescue didn't list a phone number, so I emailed twice more the next week but still got no response.  I dreamed of Cubby a second time while waiting to hear back, however:  In the dream, we had adopted her and I was carrying her into the apartment, but she peed on my shoulder before I could get her over to the litter box and Mike and I were laughing about it.  'Still no word from the rescue, though, and in desperation, I decided to write them a letter and to send it via Overnight Delivery.  In three pink legal pad pages, I pleaded my case for our adopting this kitten, feeling decidedly desperate but compelled to do so, and I sealed the letter with a drawing of Cubby.  Despite being twenty-seven dollars poorer after paying the next-day-delivery postage and uncharacteristically late for work to boot, I felt a sense of peace as I left the post office:  Whatever was meant to happen would happen.  I had fought to be gifted with her, but the rescue would obviously choose the person they deemed best for her, and if all I wanted was what was best for her, then it simply followed that whatever they decided was fine.  Blind baby Cubby would be in good hands.  

On my day off the next day, a woman from the rescue group called and said she'd just received my letter and "I'm so sorry--I thought you knew the cat was yours?!"  She had thought someone else from the rescue had already contacted me, and those volunteers all thought that she had.  I was already crying while she explained this and mouthed to Mike, "We got her!" so he wouldn't think they were tears of disappointment.  The woman explained that the group had received so much interest in this kitten and other people had applied for her but that they had "been extra picky" and had been waiting to find the right person and home for her.  After a frantic week of blind-kitten-proofing the apartment--something I'd read online had recommended covering corners with bubble-wrap so a blind cat could explore and form a mental map of a space without walking into anything sharp-edged in the process, so soon enough, I had taped bubble-wrap around all our chair legs, table legs, wall corners, etc.--and buying new beds and kitten-specific things like a stuffed cat that contained both a heating pack and a battery-operated heartbeat, Mike and I made the eighty-mile trip to collect Cubby.  At this point, we had seen a video of her and a few more photos, so we were stunned to see how much smaller she appeared in-person.  'Not even two pounds yet, she kept her eye squinched shut but snuggled onto our chests and shoulders as we took turns holding her. 'Love, love, love.  ♥

 

Halfway home, Mike driving while I kept an eye on Cubby in the backseat, we parked for awhile to give her a break from her carrier.  As I picked her up to cuddle her, she peed on my shoulder just like in my dream.  I carefully cleaned her with a wet wipe and held her awhile longer after I dried her, but when I put her back into her carrier, the innocent-looking little kitten who had pre-bath been facing me the entire trip now turned her back on me and sat facing the car door instead.  Ha!  'The furry cold shoulder, we call it.  It was the first sign of feistiness in her, and we laughed about it the rest of the way home.  (Mike from the front seat:  "She turn around yet?" - Val:  "Noooope.")  Once we got her home, I sat on the floor with her and opened the carrier to let her begin exploring, but instead, Cubby scrambled up onto my shoulder to sleep.  We sat on the floor that way for forty minutes--"Getting caught in a Cubby Trap," Mike and I began to refer to it--until she was ready to scout out her new surroundings.  "This cat!" as Mike would say.  'Such a love.

So began a summer of what a coworker would affectionately refer to as "Cubby Chaos."  Cubby would sit so still and patiently as I wiped her eye and missing eye area every morning, she would gobble down her food, and then:  Off to the races!  My memory of July is a haze of blearily trying to get Cubby onto a sleep schedule--"Now you know what it's like having a newborn," Mom remarked after one of my been-awake-since-4 a.m. reports--snuggling her on my shoulder and chest--she would lick my face and pat-pat-pat at it with her warm little paw pads as if reading it in kitten Braille--repeatedly running to reach her as she attempted to walk across the air between the arm of Mike's recliner to the arm of my wing chair like Wile E. Coyote nonchalantly stepping off a cliff, weighing her daily to make sure she was gaining weight--and she was! She went from not-quite-two-pounds to almost-five this summer--rescuing her from the tops of chair-backs, bookshelves, and cat trees--she could climb up but couldn't get back down, whether because she was blind and missing the depth perception or just because she was young and little and hadn't yet figured it out, I don't know--laughing as she chased her pink ball around the apartment--we'd hear its jingle and turn to see her marching past with it in her mouth--and texting updates back and forth with Mike.  We had rearranged our work schedules before adopting her so that one of us would always be home with her, at least until she was older and able to be alone safely.  Now that the sleep-deprivation and constant worrying have passed, I look at the pictures and reread the texts we sent each other this summer and laugh.  We only ever knew Stuffed as an adult cat, so this little kitten's energy and antics were eye-opening for us.  

And our favorite, a live-action shot from my attempted afternoon nap with her in bed beside me:

By mid-September, Cubby had settled down some.  She would either sleep through the night in bed with us or stay out of trouble if she moved to one of her beds in the living room.  Always a good eater, she weighed almost three pounds more than she had when we'd adopted her.  She was still smaller than she would have been had she had a better start in life--she was found in a tree stump when only a few weeks old after her mother had been hit by a car, and she'd been bottle-fed after that--but she had noticeably more heft to her now when we picked her up and looked more like a tiny cat than a very young kitten.  She seemed more than comfortable in her new home and had a bunch of favorite spots and daily routines now.  She continued to chase her pink ball and carry both it and a rainbow-striped long-tailed mouse around in her mouth as she ran around.  She wrestled a stuffed Grumpy Cat and cuddled up with "Mama Cat," her heartbeat cat, during naps.  Her barely-audible meow that we'd gotten used to was now a baby-dinosaur-squawking kind of sound as she got more practiced at using her voice.  Her Siamese-mix coloring was coming in darker, so her ears were standing out more against her cream-colored fur, making her even more adorable.  As I texted Mom, it was like I had Holly Hobbie's cat.  :)    

Cubby's spaying was scheduled for mid-October, and the last weekend of September, she began showing signs that we learned were possibly of her being in heat for the first time:  Lethargy, lack of appetite, decreased playfulness, and not wanting to be cuddled.  She drank but didn't eat either Friday or Saturday, and Sunday October 2nd, we took her to an emergency vet since I figured she might need IV fluids for nutrition soon if she didn't get her appetite back.  After the initial exam, the vet's assistant told us we could wait in the waiting room while more tests were run or wait outside in our car, so we chose the latter, and within about ten minutes, the vet called to say that she was sorry and knew this wasn't what I was expecting to hear but that it was time to make some hard decisions about Cubby. Cubby had FIP, which the vet described to us as a "silent killer" kind of illness that typically  lies dormant until it's almost progressed to its fatal end.  She and one of the assistants had both had a hard time finding Cubby's heartbeat, and the ultrasound had shown fluid already built-up in both her abdominal cavity and around her heart.  She couldn't tell us what to do, she said, but there was nothing she could do for Cubby.  She continued to talk, but I was already sobbing and told her I was sorry but that I couldn't talk and was passing the phone to Mike.  I heard her say, "I understand, and I'm so sorry" before Mike stepped out of the car with my phone.  While he walked around the parking lot talking with her, I cried like I have rarely cried in my forty-five years, feeling literally blindsided, and the memory of the sound of my voice as I sat slumped over in the front seat repeatedly howling, "No, nooooooooooooo" remains one of the most disturbing memories of all of this for me.  

The assistants and vets who helped us and Cubby that day had all mentioned at various points that Cubby was "really cute" and "very sweet."  The main vet was crying with me and Mike while she prepared to put Cubby to sleep.  "Poor baby," she murmured to her as she administered the final drug.  Mike and I talked to her as she passed, Mike sitting beside her while I supported her little body as the drug took hold.  She was still smiling even as she died. 

We buried Cubby by dear Stuffed in Mike's mom's backyard, with her blankie, her pink ball, her other favorite toys, and a note, and covered her with Baby's Breath and a riot of roses in both summer and fall colors to reflect the two seasons we got to share with her.  It was almost 10 p.m. when we finished in the yard, working by the garage lights and motion-sensor lights.  When I told Mike that I was glad Stuffed was near Cubby, he said, "Yes.  He can keep an eye on her," and I started crying again.  I had bought the baby Cubby figurine below a month before she died, intending it to be one of my Christmas presents from Mike, but he gave it to me after we came home from burying her.  With that perfect smile on her face and the pudgy kitten body to go with it, there she is with beautiful Stuffed, utterly oblivious to the "Cubby chaos" she's created.  :)  O' my cub!  My heart, my heart. . . .

Almost three months later, I just ache to feel Cubby on my shoulder again.  I miss the warm heft of her soft little body against my shoulder.  I miss the way she tilted her head at us.  I miss singing to her about how ♪ "I once caught a Cubby-Cat.  I caught her in my Cubby trap.  And when you catch a Cubby Cat, you cuddle her on your shoulder and lap."  ♫  I miss watching her nuzzling into Mike's neck, rubbing her face into his beard.  I miss watching her romp around with her ball in her mouth.  I miss getting home from work late at night and having her run out from the bedroom toward me.  I miss holding her paw when we'd first go to bed so she'd know I was right there.  I miss her in her entirety.  It will always bother me that I'll never know how big she would have gotten as an adult cat or learn if she would have eventually jumped down from the perches, trees, and chairs on her own.  She is the closest I'll ever get to having a baby.  The grief is literally breathtaking sometimes, and I force myself to breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out until the overwhelming wave rolls out again.  I was heartbroken after Stuffed died, but at twenty-one, he had put in his time, and we had been with him year after year as he became an elderly cat.  Cubby was maybe six months old when she died, and we only had twelve weeks total with her.  Just getting her bigger, stronger, and more confident in her surroundings had been such a mission for me from the very beginning, I still feel lost without it.  The day before Cubby died, I had been reading about Robert Kennedy's assassination and how young women who worked in one of his campaign offices the summer of 1968 were witnessed silently taking down its windows' "Kennedy for President" posters and banners.  I've remembered that image a lot since October 2nd.  I had kept a baby book of Cubby's medical records, daily weights, etc.  I'd been so proud of her.  (I'll always be so proud of her.)  How brave she was!  'Blind and hungry and likely expecting her mother to return to her and the rest of her siblings in that tree stump this spring, not being able to see the face of the person who pulled her out of it or the faces of those who transported her or handled her or bottle-fed her or held her in the months before we got her.  'Having to trust that these new voices and hands and shoulders in July would be gentle and good to her too and this new home was a safe place.  She had to take her entire world and lifetime on faith.  And she did it smilingly!   One of the books about blind cats I'd read before adopting her  was a memoir by Gwen Cooper of her time with her beloved "Homer."  After he died, she stated that she had known within five minutes of meeting him that he had already made her want to be a better person, and I had felt the same about Cubby before I'd even been approved to adopt her.  I think about that a lot too.  I think about how as May began, I didn't even know yet that this sweet little soul existed, and how just days later, my heart and my life had been changed by her.  And here I am now, in the end-of-year stillness, sorting it all out.

Monday or Tuesday of the week before Cubby died, I had woken from a dream in tears.  In it, Mike and I were sitting with a female vet--in real life, Cubby's regular vet had been a man--who was asking us how old Cubby was.  "'Between four-five months," I'd answered.  The vet said something else I've never remembered, then:  "I'm sorry.  You only have one more week with her."  I woke up crying at that point and told Mike I'd had a bad dream, but I hadn't even thought of it again until after Cubby had died.  It all really played out as it was destined to, it seems, from connecting with her the first time I saw her picture to knowing instantly that she would be "Cubby" and not the name the rescue group had given her. . .the first two dreams I'd had about her before we'd even been approved to adopt her. . . .I will ponder it all my earthly days, the wonder of how this precious blind baby came into my life and the part she played in it.  

2022 turns to 2023, then, with eternal gratitude for the gift of our ever-smiling Cubby.  What else is there to do now, after all, but be thankful for her, hold her in our hearts, and let her teach us how to feel our way forward?

♥

Lunch Plans

One of my quirks that makes Mike shake his head is my habit of eating a variety of snacks over a period of a few hours--sharp cheddar, some almonds, something leftover from supper, carrots with hummus, cucumber salad, a hard-boiled egg, whatever sounds good--as breakfasts and lunches on my days off instead of taking the time to "eat something real."  I don't think one way is better than the other, but it occurred to me this past week as I brainstormed ways to make this winter better for myself that taking the time on one of my days off every week to cook a "proper" dish that has some fondly-remembered significance to me would be a sweet habit to get into this winter.  Similarly, a friend from high school who is a marathoner mentally dedicates every mile of a race to a different loved one to get her through the hardest stretches and to refocus the endeavor for herself in that way.  Yes, yes, yes.  I've long thought the finest thing about my life is the beautiful people who have been in it, so why not honor them in the days ahead by measuring out the same ingredients and performing the same steps of measuring and boiling and baking that they did or do.  Yesterday I kicked off the project by cooking my grandfather's gnocchi and my grandmother's meatballs.  I cried once as I smelled the potato-flour dough and then again when I tasted my first bite.  I make the meatballs often, and I used to cook the gnocchi a few times a year, but neither Mike nor I should have the extra potato or white flour anymore, and I'm not interested in the healthier versions out there--I want Papa's heavy gnocchi or none at all--so it had been at least five years since I'd made these foods together.  I will modestly but honestly say I hadn't lost my touch:  My grandparents would have proudly recognized both their beloved dishes.  :)  Here's to the best of grandparents, here's to memories of Sunday dinners at their house the first 24 years of my life, and here's to all the LOVE.  How blessed am I.   

♥

10 Years

♥

Dear Little Stuffed

Stuffed died Tuesday afternoon, and I have never felt such pure undiluted sadness in my life.  Mike and I have been calling it "grief-concentrate":  There is no anger or guilt or confusion or denial to dilute it, and there has not been a series of tasks and events (no meeting with funeral home directors to plan a service, no gathering or luncheon with all our loved ones after, etc.) to distract us.  It is just us in our little apartment alone now--just the two of us for the first time in our entire relationship--missing him.  Stuffed was a few feet away during Mike's and my first kiss; He is just part of our relationship and home.  I ache in a way I've never ached before.  I've never felt anything like this.  Is it because he--even at 21 years old--was still less than a foot off the ground so still seemed like a baby who needed to be looked out for and protected?  Is it because we couldn't really talk with each other so I don't know for sure how much he understood?  "Doesn't it seem creepy to you that he doesn't talk?" I'd always ask Mike, and Mike would always reply, "He talks.  Just in his own way."  But that was never what I meant, and he knew that.  I was always half-expecting him to talk.  Often, Mike would walk into a room or get home from work to hear me chattering away to Stuffed, and he'd say, "You talk to him like he's a person" or "Gee, you talk to him more than you do me."  :)  "Well, what if he understands us?" I'd always counter.  "Of course, I'm going to talk to him."  :)  Once I got to know him, I never really thought of Stuffed as a pet or as even as completely a cat.  He was the third person in the apartment--Mike would joke that I was the third person since he and Stuffed had been together long before I came onto the scene to "girl up" their shared bachelor life--and I thought of him as a soul who was living on earth in the form of a cat, and as a sweet little soul with whom I'd been entrusted.  We knew it was coming, but that made it no easier.  I had expected it to hurt when the day came, but this is infinitely worse than I had expected.  When Stuffed woke up Tuesday morning suddenly unable to stand, we knew it was time to call the vet, and the memory of my own voice saying as much to Mike still sickens me.  "We suffer so they don't have to," I read online this week, and I understand, but knowing it was time has yet to make this that much easier.  

Around 7:30 am Tuesday, Mike gently lifted him up to hold him one last time, and Stuffed actually tilted his head way back to look up at him.  Stuffed did that twice--and it was something I'd never seen him do before--and the two of them kept eye contact for about ten seconds each time.  I always called the two of them "Frick and Frack," as Mike was very much Stuffed's Person.  He loved me and stayed at my side through every illness I've had since 2007, we posed for a picture together on my wedding day, he loved me and showed it--a gentler, sweeter cat's likely never lived--but Mike was his best friend.  

Mike got Stuffed back into his round bed on top of the patchwork wing chair (which he so loved ♥) while we tried to find a mobile vet who could come that day.  They were all so overbooked because of Covid, we had no "luck" until the third vet we called said she could be there by 5 pm that day--and only because she would already be in our neighborhood for another appointment.  5 pm seemed like an eternity to us since we weren't sure if Stuffed was in pain or just paralyzed ("just"--how grotesque), but by 1 pm, she texted to say she could be there by 1:30, and there we were with less than half an hour left with Stuffed.  We kept his favorite toys around him in his bed and took the picture above while we were waiting.  He used his mouse as a pillow, we kept "Girl Cat"--the green and pink once-Catnip-filled toy I'd made for him for the first day I was going to meet him in 2007 (and whom he'd instantly taken to ↓ ♥)--beside him, 

the now-held-together-with-packaging-tape "crinkle ball" he and Mike used to play fetch with was tucked nearby, as well, and I pinned our wedding picture to Girl Cat's heart-shaped belly to add some extra love to Stuffed's little bed.  These were the things we buried him with later that day, and I like to think they had each been infused with enough joy and love from all the memories to continue to bless Stuffed forever as his floofy little body rests beside them.  

The vet instinctively stroked Stuffed's incredible black/white "divider line" from nose to forehead while she worked, which is a sweet memory for me, both that that was her instinctive reaction to this adorable aspect of his face, the same way we always petted it and straightened his fur along the line--"Fix his stripe!" I'd say to Mike if the fur was in disarray while they were playing--and that she was so gentle with him.  Stuffed passed easily--bless all involved for that ♥--with our talking to him and petting him in his cozy round bed up on the patchwork chair, and with everything I said and did all day Tuesday both before and after that moment, I remained in constant prayer to Sommer to beg her to be there for Stuffed and to greet him and hold him and comfort him and play with him and explain things to him if he needed it.  You can ignore me the rest of my life after this, but don't you dare let him be lonely or scared, Sommer, I mean it.  Help him.  Help him!  'Prayers with every heartbeat all day and night.  The vet explained before leaving that given everything we'd described of Stuffed's last couple days, she was almost positive he'd experienced a blood clot--because cats lose use of their limbs that fast from them.  I told her I'd taken a video just the day before--Monday morning--of Stuffed running from his food bowl by the patchwork cupboards all the way to the bathroom--and she said yes, she hears that a lot:  "My cat was fine two hours ago and now she's at death's door."  She said there was nothing we could have done or that she even could have done, and how especially at 21 years old and dealing with other health issues, there would have been no coming back from it for Stuffed.  We felt huge weights lift off of us from her explanation and talked another few minutes before she left.  In about twenty years of this work, she had never heard of another animal named Stuffed.  :)  Hearing that made me feel good, just as seeing her stroking Stuffed's divider-line had.  She recognized a couple unique things about him in the very short time she was around him, is all, but it touched me.  

I had already set up a cuddly towel-lined container-box for us to place Stuffed into for burial, but watching Mike carry him over to it broke me, and I was soon bent over the table sobbing, "Why are we putting him into a BOX?  A box with a LID!?"  Oh, my heart.  When that wave of pain and nausea broke, I was able to brush him one last time and arrange the mouse, crinkle ball, Girl Cat, and our wedding picture around him.  His soft little body was curled up in a ball with his tail wrapped around him, and Mike placed his paw over his eyes--the way he used to sleep--and I was okay ("okay") then:  I had tried to close his eyes, but they wouldn't stay as closed as I'd have liked, as the vet had already told me would be the case, but with his paw up, now Stuffed just looked like he was sleeping curled up in a little yin yang ball with his toys.  We touched him some more and bawled--"I want him back," I kept crying.  "I want him back."  Mike didn't want to see me cover Stuffed the final time before putting the lid onto the box and then wrapping the box itself, so he left to go pick up our rental car so we could make the drive to his mom's house to bury Stuffed there.  I had a few more minutes with Stuffed then.  

I don't write much about my work in this space but will share that I worked for seven years as a caregiver to children of all ages--newborns to young adults in their early twenties, and all of them differing in developmental levels and physical ability--so I know from that that I'm capable caring for a sick, injured, and/or dying person and body.  I won a few awards for it in my years of doing it.  I did not think I could handle Stuffed's decline and death, though.  Something about Stuffed just made it seem like it would be impossible for me when the time came:  Impossible for me to handle physically his little fur-covered body, and impossible for me to handle emotionally being around him in the moments before, during, after his death--to the extent that I'd ever let myself contemplate it at all.  And instead, now I know about myself that I didn't just manage to care for him both before and after his passing, I did it beautifully, if I may say so, and with a grace I hadn't expected, albeit with a seemingly-bottomless bucket of tears too.  That is one of Stuffed's gifts to me:  He taught me this about myself.  The depth of my love is both what makes me good at it and what makes it hurt so very much--But I can do it even for sweet Stuffed, probably down to 3 pounds when he died, just a little puffball who trusted that Mike and I would always be there for him and help him.  And we were.  I had been praying the past couple years for Stuffed to die peacefully in his sleep, and now I'm indescribably grateful that was an unanswered prayer:  I wouldn't have wanted him to have been alone as he passed, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss the opportunity to take care of him in so many ways this past month and past week, especially.  

Before covering him completely, I talked to him and snuggled my head into his fur a final time--I've never felt anything as soft as his fur and likely won't again in this lifetime--tearfully pinned a blanket around the box and a note to its top, and soon, Mike and I were on the road.  I kept Stuffed in my lap the during the two-hour drive, my turn now to hold him a last time.

I had bought Baby's Breath and Rosemary--Rosemary for remembrance--and arranged it on the box before Mike began replacing all the soil.  Just as Mike couldn't handle seeing Stuffed's body being covered a final time, I couldn't watch as he covered the box.  While he shoveled, I stood by my mother-in-law's rock wall and held myself while I cried, shaking and nauseous again at the thought that Stuffed was disappearing right behind me.  Once he said the box was covered, I was better again and able to help replace the sod and clean up the spot a little.  Stuffed is buried under a Lilac tree ♥ with pale pink roses, Foxgloves, Spirea, and ferns nearby, and with two bird feeders in the Lilac branches above him.  In even the short time we were there, my mother-in-law's yard was visited by two cats--hers and another that just sauntered through--a Baltimore Oriole couple, Sparrows, a Cardinal, Mourning Doves, and a Hummingbird.  The lovely rock wall is a few feet away.  It was sunny but also rained intermittently while we worked, so everything around us was glistening and sparkling and smelled of good soil, fresh grass, and roses.  It is a beautiful spot for such a beautiful little soul.  Oh, my heart.  My sweet Stuffed.  It bothers me sometimes that Stuffed's beautiful little body is underground in the dark, but as I told Mike in a calmer moment this week, my beloved Daffodils and roses and Lilacs and Hollyhocks and Foxgloves and glowing autumn Maple trees all start from underground in the dark too, and if that's good enough for them, it is certainly good enough for the body of gorgeous Stuffed. 

And then there was this:  I didn't fall asleep until after 3:30 in the morning that night, and we got up at 7 to make the drive home.  I started sobbing as we prepared to go, and I couldn't calm down, so we ended up sitting in the car for probably half an hour as I tried to get it together.  Leaving Mike's hometown meant leaving Stuffed there--and why would we ever leave Stuffed in another town?  'Hideous howling pain.  While we talked, I silently prayed to Sommer to let me know that Stuffed was okay.  He's so short and little, is he okay, he's so trusting, who's taking care of him, what if he gets lost, he's never been outside, is he okay, he's probably lonely, does he miss us, is he okay, does he understand, who's cuddling him?  'Wild thoughts borne of wild pain.  I know better and have stronger faith than this, but this is grief talking.  I wish I could see even a short video of what Stuffed's up to now, just to stop my heart from howling.  I finally calmed down enough that we could begin the drive to a now-Stuffed-less home, and we were on our way.  Maybe an hour later, as we drove under a cloud-filled blue sky, I saw Stuffed in it:  There was, quite clearly, a smiling cat resting in the clouds over us.  I took picture after picture as we traveled below the clouds, and when the image of the face and body started to fade a bit, a paw print appeared.  He is lying down with his face resting on his front paws. 

Do you see it?  ♥  It's almost like a photograph superimposed onto clouds. 

And a close-up of the head on top of the front paws:

Thank you, Sommer.  ♥  Now that I can't hear Stuffed talk, I somehow understand what he's saying:  We're still here for each other.  

He's another of my angels now, and I'll keep talking to him every day of my life, here and hereafter, same as I do with Sommer and Papa and Grandma and my other grandfather and Grammy and Mike's dad (who also loved Stuffed and is undoubtedly loving him all the more now) and others who have gone on ahead of me. 

We returned home Wednesday afternoon, a scene too sad to recount, Mike worked the rest of that day, and I returned to work Thursday.  Life has gone on.  I have another crying jag probably every three hours, although I've told Mike that if I let myself give in to it, I have it in me to cry--to bawl, really--every minute of every day this week.  Stuffed came to me late last Saturday night to let me hold him on my lap for what would be the last time, and there was something different about it--he was leaning against my breast in an almost child-like way, and he stayed in that position a long time.  I finally reached around him with my phone to take a few pictures--both to see his face to make sure he was okay and to get the picture.  I didn't know it would be the last time, but I wonder if Stuffed did, just like he seemed to when he arched his neck back twice to hold eye contact with Mike Tuesday morning.  

Sunday--Father's Day--was a bad day for him, and Mike and I discussed whether it was time to call the vet even then, but Monday morning, he was up and running--I even took the video--so we thought maybe it had just been old age plus the 90-something-degree days that weekend that had slowed him down, since he's so floofy and never eats much in the heat.  When I got home from work around midnight, though, after a day of text updates from Mike, I was worried and stayed out here with Stuffed until 2 in the morning, sitting in front of him on the ottoman while he slept in his little bed up on the patchwork chair, talking about everything with him, our last long "You-talk-to-him-like-he's-a-person" talk.  It was still a shock to be where we were with him just six hours later, but I see now that all three of us seemed to know it was coming and that all the pieces fit together.  I met him in June 2007 and said goodbye-for-now in June 2020.  You may remember that another vet had told me in the summer of 2018 that Stuffed probably had six more months--and what a wreck I was after hearing that, having to contemplate Stuffed's death in specifics for the first time, and how I soon found a heart-shaped piece of Stuffed's fur by his food bowl.   'A fur-heart before he died and a smiling cloud-cat after.  These things do not just happen.  ♥  

 It has not been lost on us this week that one of the unforeseen gifts of All Things Covid-Related was that due to Mike's furlough and then his work-from-home status, Stuffed got four months of having Mike home with him 24 hours a day.  ♥  We look back now and see how all the pieces fit together so that just as Stuffed's health declined and he started having real issues, he always had someone here with him--we could not even leave for a few hours for dinner and a movie since nothing's been open, you know--a luxury of time at home with him we literally could not have afforded with both of us working/in normal times.  

We know this will feel better in time--and maybe someday I'll even be able to keep mascara on my eyes more than two hours  :) --and that we'll bring another whiskered soul into our home at some point.  Although we don't yet know who our future cats are, I am already picturing them as part of Stuffed's "litter"--just separated by years in "delivery."  He's the Patriarch, as Mike put it, and I keep thinking of him as "Uncle Stuffed" to all the cats who will come after.  We will love them deeply too, I'm sure, but Stuffed is forever the One and the Best.  'Stuffed the Magnificent, who won a "Pretty Kitties" photo contest by more than 40,000 votes ten years ago.  :)   'Stuffed who could stand on his hind legs for impressive lengths of time.  'Stuffed who played fetch with the crinkle ball.  'Stuffed with the perfect cat-head-shape on his back, angel wings below that, and whose front legs featured a heart.  'Stuffed whose red heart-shaped identification tag on his collar began with the words "I am Stuffed."  :)  'Stuffed of the perfect name.  Mom found us a Thanksgiving card years ago of a black and white cat being asked if he wants more turkey, and the inside read, "No thanks, I'm Stuffed."  :)  'When a little girl in my care a few years back asked me if I had any pets and what their names were, I told her about Stuffed and she immediately responded, "Like stuffed crust?"  :)   We have so much to smile over now.  And he is not really gone, as we have seen.  He is still safe and loved and happy and very aware of us, he's just out of our sight for awhile.  

There was an awful moment after we returned home Wednesday while Mike sat beside me listening to me when he asked me if I was going to be okay.  "Yes, Dear," I answered.  "It'll just take awhile."  But this first stage of grief is so raw, it was almost unbelievable to me even as I said it.  I trust that Sommer and Mike's dad are cuddling Stuffed until we can again, though.  And I won't disrespect the memory of Stuffed's perfect little soul by lingering too long in sadness over this separation from him.  I will honor the good, beautiful, sweet gift that was Stuffed--and express my gratitude for him--by creating and sharing goodness, beauty, and sweetness in all the ways I know how.  But oh, my heart, how I miss him.  Dear little Stuffed!  

♥

Needing a Better Day (or Thank God for Roses)

The kitchen sink has been clogged since Sunday.  Blah-blah to getting home from work after 11 pm to a night that went into the wee hours and then carried over into early Monday spent plunging, liquid Roto-Rooter blah, Drano blah-blah, a bottle of something else, blah-blah baking soda and vinegar trick, boiling water, salt, more boiling water, blah-blah, dish liquid and more boiling water, blah.  Snake #1 didn't work.  Snake #2 didn't work.  'Easily $40 wasted at this point, and so my day off Monday became more of the same and then cleaning the apartment to get ready for the building manager to come over--for the first time ever, so what a lovely first experience in our home.  And the wall I painted 1/3 black (BLACK!) and ended up not liking (not enough natural light for it, a story for another day) but haven't painted it over yet is--well, it just "is," and how wonderful that he got to see it in all its 1/3-painted (and-with-pink-roses-Wallies-pasted-on-too)!  Gah!  He worked on the sink a couple hours yesterday and got nowhere.  A plumber would be here "tonight or tomorrow."  Backing up:  I gave up on my day Sunday at 1 pm and let myself just sleep to escape.  I awoke at 4 pm Sunday to the news that Stuffed had fallen off his perch in his sleep "but seems okay" and did I know that while carrying containers of the stinky-not-draining-chemical-filled-water back to the bathroom sink to dump it into the sink there (since I was sick of the smell) that some of it had dripped and I had left a trail of bleached-out spots on the carpet leading through the kitchen, living room, and hallway?  (Well, I knew then!)  And it has been 80° inside the apartment even with our window air-conditioning unit going.  I'm not a heat person.  'Am mildly nauseous in it.  But windows open for fresh air while the sink is full of chemicals, especially for Stuffed, was my thinking Sunday and early Monday.  Gah!  'Decided Monday that obviously, we would still have our planned holiday meal, but what I cooked that I had loved so much New Year's Eve didn't taste at all the same to me Monday, and it involved both frying and baking in the ridiculous heat and humidity--and for nothing.  ('Not "for nothing":  Mike liked it, but this is a story of my trials and tribulations, so let's focus on me.)  ;)  'Decided later that what I really felt like was the rest of my endive with a simple oil and vinegar dressing, salt and pepper on top--yes, a lovely bowl of greens--but who was the dolt who used up all the vinegar on her read-about-online "no-fail" clogged sink remedy?!  So no endive.  And the store was closed, of course.  Dishes being washed in the bathroom sink.  Husband cutting himself doing the dishes.  21-year-old Stuffed peed on the living room floor yesterday for the first time ever.  'Such a worry anymore.  Will this ever end.   And in the midst of all this, to know that it's not only Memorial Day, but also Memorial Day during a pandemic and that that should be enough to keep it all in perspective for me and I should be grateful and happy for all that is safe, healthy, and good--and I *am* grateful and happy for all that is safe, healthy, and good--but it's still been a rotten few days, but that mental wrestling match keeps happening in my head anyway.  Bleh.  'Still waiting for the plumber, and I'm leaving for work soon.  Work is its own story, and it's one I won't tell, but as we all know or can imagine, days--now months--of masks and goggles are wearying.  I bought myself a big bouquet of coral roses yesterday before work, though, and that is a good thing.  This saga being what it is, though, I will also report that I didn't budget correctly and forgot that the bank was about to debit the electric bill money, so I now have $5-something in checking until I'm paid and another bill about to be debited from money-that's-not-there.  But. . .roses!  The ones out front are blooming too.  :)