Hey sweetheart,
So today would have been your 19th birthday. You know what that would have meant: mostly a normal day, but with a full can of food for both breakfast and dinner, complete with an evening serenade and even more scritchies and smooches than usual all day long.
Alas.
It was…I don’t want to say it was a hard day for me and your mom, but definitely a melancholy day. We miss you every day, but passing the milestones without you feels extra strange.
It’s funny. I was thinking a lot about you yesterday without even putting it together that today would be your birthday. I saw a picture of you on the little Google screen we keep in the kitchen—it was one of the last pictures I took of you, when you weren’t really getting around anymore. You were lying on the couch in my office, covered up with a blanket.
Anyway, I couldn’t get that photo out of my head all day. I went for a walk after work and I was thinking a lot about your last week or so. It’s a good thing I was wearing sunglasses so it wasn’t obvious that I was getting a little leaky. I wish we could gotten you some relief before you found it on your own. You know we tried. But I’m so glad we had those last few days to fill you up with love. I’m sure you hated having to be carried everywhere and all the other little indignities. Having you close to us, and seeing us trust us to take care of you, meant absolutely everything. I would have done it forever.
(A little tangent about seeing that particular photo: that screen just pulls up random photos from the last I-don’t-know-how-long on my camera roll. There are still plenty of good pictures of you that pop up, but the way it works now, we’re going to get to a point fairly soon where the ones it shows us will be mostly from when you weren’t at your best. Well. You know we have probably literally thousands of pictures of you from over the years, pictures of you at your sassiest, judgiest, laziest, craziest, Luniest. I’m going to mix it up to make sure we always get plenty of those.)
We have a new little fuzzball in the house now. We adopted Ginger in June, and she’ll be six months old next week. It’s been quite a change. You were pretty much always a little lady, whereas Ginger is 75% battering ram. When we adopted you, the shelter told us you were four months old; when we took you to the vet for the first time, they told us you were probably closer to six months (I know you always knew we sort of arbitrarily assigned your “birthday”). At any rate, unless they were both low, I want you to know that you were a really good kitten. You were always so chill, the perfect companion for working from home.
Ginger not so much, but she’s learning. She’s just so different from you. She’s playful and rambunctious, and you weren’t that way so much, even when you were little. She managed to fracture her tail last week, and we don’t even know how she did it. Between that and getting all her vaccinations, we’ve already made more trips to the vet with her than you had in probably your first five years with us. I think at this point we’re good up through her first yearly checkup, but believe me when I tell you I’m knocking on wood as I write that.
On the flip side, she’s much more comfortable with the carrier and the car than you ever were. I think that’s the only situation where I’d apply the word “chill” to her. Remember the first time we put you in the car to take you somewhere, and you both puked and pooped before we got out of the neighborhood?
And in some ways she’s so much like you that it hurts (sometimes literally). I’m sitting in my office chair right now writing this, and she’s right behind me, making me scooch forward to the edge of the seat. How many work days did you and I spend in exactly the same position? How did she know how to do that? I certainly didn’t teach her. She just jumped up and nosed her way back there like it was her birthright.
We gave her a few of your things. I know you never really cared that much about your toys. She has a bunch of them, and really likes a couple. She’s also using your food bowls. But my favorite thing is your tower. You spent so much time in it, I wasn’t sure if she would ever use it—it has to smell like you; there’s still a bunch of your fur in it. But she took to it right away, and it’s one of her favorite places to lounge. Sometimes it breaks my heart to see her in it, but mostly it brings me joy.
I wish you could know her. You would hate her, but I have a feeling she would absolutely adore you. It’s so hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that you two never existed at the same time. Her birthday was March 22 (we’re more sure of that than we were of yours). That puts it exactly three months after we lost you. I don’t put a lot of stock into stuff like that, but I have to admit, the symmetry of it is comforting.
You were always a demanding taskmaster, but you made Brandi and me into pretty goddamned good cat parents, and that’s something I’m really proud of. You also really spoiled us. Ginger has a tough act to follow.
You’re my heart. I’ll always miss you.
With all my love,
Daddy
