Tag: love

Bringing Our Girl Home

~ Jon Williams ~ Leave a comment

TW: pet loss

The vet’s office called this afternoon and said Luna was ready to be picked up. So Brandi and I went and got her and brought her home, one last time.

It was eight days ago that we lost her. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

Brandi was the one who wanted a cat.

Which isn’t to say I didn’t want a cat; it’s just that she was more active about it. That’s a fair summary of our relationship, actually.

Picture it: Troy, Ohio, February 2008. I’m back home after a short work trip, and Brandi asks if I want to visit the Miami County Animal Shelter on Saturday morning. You know…“just to look.”

Sure.

In the cat area, Brandi’s eyes went wide. So many cats. After a moment, she zeroed in on a little calico. It turned out to be an asshole. But while she went to say hello, I scanned the room to see how the cats were reacting to us.

And there she was. On the far wall, a little striped kitty, poking her front leg out of her cage and beckoning with her paw. I nudged Brandi. “I think that one wants you.” Brandi got her out of the cage; she never went back in. We adopted her (she cost $40), took her home, and named her Luna.

At first, it was a lot. She went into heat almost immediately. Then we discovered she had ringworm, so we had to quarantine her for a month. (Were we strict about observing said quarantine? We were not. We did at least change clothes anytime we went in to visit her, which we did often, hence one of her many nicknames: Kittypants.)

She went into heat one more time before we could get her spayed. Brandi was working a crazy schedule at the time; so she could sleep, I stayed in the living room while Luna yowled all night.

But we got through. I had recently started working remotely; Luna and I bonded hard. She would sit with me in my office chair while I worked during the day and sleep in my arm or on my legs at night. Brandi had to catch up as her schedule normalized, but she did. And for nearly 18 years, Luna was the best little friend, fuzz monster, bed hog, reading buddy, couch companion, office mate, and general supervisor we ever could have asked for.

Luna left us around 7:30 this morning. She was in bed, on her pillow and blanket, with mommy and daddy there to let her know she was safe and loved. So well loved.

I’m glad we got to spend so much time together. It was never going to be enough.

~September 15, 2007 (born)/February 9, 2008 (adopted) – December 22, 2025

It’s been a weird few days since then. We had Luna for nearly eighteen years, and for her to now be gone is kind of surreal. Over all that time, your mind makes space for patterns and rituals—some you aren’t even consciously aware of—that are suddenly over.

No one screaming you awake to demand breakfast before sunrise. No one knocking over cups because she’s thirsty (or just wants attention). No one chewing on every bag or scrap of plastic you put down and forgot about for one second. No one underfoot when you’re carrying groceries or laundry. No one to say goodbye to when you leave, or to greet you with a cheerful chirp and roll when you get home. No one crawling into your lap when you’re trying to read, or standing in front of your monitor when you’re trying to write, or snoring on the end of the couch when you’re trying to watch a movie. No one thundering up and down the stairs at night, or standing on your chest and pawing at your face (or sometimes placing her cold wet nose directly on your eyelid) because you’re not sleeping in a position that’s comfortable for her.

Coming when it did, it has certainly made the holidays…I don’t know, pick your adjective—difficult? Melancholy? Bittersweet? We’re still finding our joy where we can, and it’s impossible for Brandi and me to talk about Luna without a lot of laughter. We were just really hoping we’d get to enjoy one more Christmas with our girl.

In my life, I’ve known and been close to a fair number of animals, but Luna is really only the second that has been “mine.” The first was a Chow-Lab mix named Cupid that I got as a puppy when I was in high school. In a very odd coincidence, Cupid’s adoption date was February 10 (1992); Luna’s was February 9 (2008). We lost Cupid on December 20 (2005); Luna passed on December 22.

Of course, when I went to college in 1995, Cupid stayed with my parents. I was back home often after that, sometimes for extended periods, and she and I were always close. But by the time she passed, she hadn’t been a part of my everyday for ten years. Luna, on the other hand…we were together nearly 24/7 for her entire life. Getting back to a routine with a cat-shaped hole in it after the holidays is going to be one of the hardest things I’ve done.

I’ll have another post at some point with some fun stories and good memories of Luna. But for now, I wanted to make sure she got a little tribute on the day she came home for good.

Love you, Tunie.

Losing a Friend

~ Jon Williams ~ 1 Comment

NOTE: This was originally posted to a different blog of mine on December 21, 2005. Posted here December 31, 2025.

TW: pet loss

Cupid (1991 – 2005)

I still have a pretty vivid recollection of the day Cupid came into my life and family, which happened on Monday, February 10, 1992. I was fourteen years old, a freshman in high school. Having had a rough day at school, I was lying on the couch when my dad got home from work. He asked if I wanted to go get a dog. A friend of his had a dog who had just had puppies, and we had been offered one if we wanted to come pick one out. I wasn’t inclined to go anywhere, but Dad kept asking, and finally he insisted. So I got in the van and we headed to his friend’s house out in the country.

We were led out into the yard when we got there, and we found a mass of squirming puppies frolicking on the grass. I don’t remember how many there were, probably seven or eight, all of which were mottled brown and white…except for one yellow one which immediately caught my attention. The guy who owned the dogs said I could have whichever one I wanted, but I was a little hesitant to take the only one that was different. After a few minutes of trying and failing to pick out another one, though, I finally asked if we could have the yellow one. A few minutes later we were loading her into the recycling bin we had brought along and putting her in the van.

I deliberated over a name for her for a while. I can’t remember any of the other possibilities I had in mind, but we finally settled on “Cupid” since it was just a few days before Valentine’s Day. I’m not particularly sentimental about Valentine’s Day, nor was I then, but it just seemed to fit (even though the original Cupid was male). This was occasionally shortened to “Cupe,” and as she got bigger and rounder, she also picked up the nicknames “Fatty,” “Chubs,” and my personal favorite, “Chubbalicious.”

For the first few days we had her, all she did was follow me around the house. I remember thinking that it would be pretty annoying if it continued, but it didn’t. Actually, as Cupid grew out of her puppy stage, she really wasn’t much of a people person. Sure, she’d come to investigate whenever someone new came in the door, but after an obligatory bark and sniff, she was more than content to go lie under the table and leave them alone. If someone (besides me) would go seek her out, she’d allow herself to be petted for a few minutes, and then she’d go find somewhere else to hang out.

It’s amazing, really, how loyal Cupid remained to me. I left for college shortly after I turned eighteen, and she wasn’t quite four yet. I was home for some weekends and then for summers, and I came home for a little over a year after I graduated college. Then I moved out for good and haven’t really been back for an extended period since then. Still, there’s no question that she remained my dog. If I sat on the floor, she’d come sit next to me and lick my face; she’d let me lie down next to her and put my head on her belly. I don’t think she would have done those things for anyone else. I’m just amazed that she continued to remember me so well when I essentially wasn’t there for so long.

I’ve been home twice in the past few weeks, and I knew she probably wasn’t going to live a whole lot longer (although I didn’t expect it to come nearly this soon). She had lost most of her hearing–she didn’t come to greet me at the door anymore because she couldn’t hear me come in–and she was having trouble going up and down the stairs. At fourteen years old, she was pretty old for a dog. I got the call from Mom last night, and she said they had to have her put down. She had been getting sick, so they had taken her to the vet, who had found a tumor on her liver. He thought he could get it out, but when he opened her up to do so, he found that it was too much. He told my parents he could just close her up and she’d live a little while longer that way, but they chose not to let her suffer. As much as I would have loved to see her one last time, I’m glad they let her go. I couldn’t bear the thought of my friend suffering for even just a few days–and that’s probably all it would have been. I’m sad that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, but that would have been too much to ask.

On the bright side, I’m glad that I was home a couple of times recently and got to spend at least a little bit of time with her. She was a good dog, and a good friend. It’s going to be very strange to come home without her there waiting for me. While I’m sure I’ll get used to it, I’m not looking forward to doing so.