FA+
Shop
Bleh.
10 years ago
TL;DR I’m coming to grips with the fact that my cat is dead.
Alright, lets get this over with.
A long time ago, I met a kitten on the floor of a seedy pet shop in Oregon. There were other kittens, but she alone out of all of them absolutely demanded attention from my brothers and I. She cried out in that small, sweet way kittens do, and wanted to be right next to us all the time, even climbing right into our laps at any opportunity. She just about followed us out the door, but I suppose she may as well have since just days later, my parents bought her, and one November evening we brought her to what would be her home. I named her Bastet.
This is definitely going to become something much too long at the pace I’m going. In brief, Bastet was as “cat” as you can imagine, but at the same time she was an absolute princess. She was named after a goddess, and she knew it. But Bastet wasn’t all sass, in fact quite the opposite. She truly was a sweet kitty, and she liked to pretend she was above me, and my family, and especially the dog, but there were plenty of times that I’ve seen the two sharing a corner of the bed, or an armchair, or even snuggled up together on the couch.
A month ago, Bastet disappeared in the night. We investigated, we searched, and we never found her. But we know what happened, the evidence is quite clear. She was attacked by a predator, chased down, and taken from us. My mom says it was her fault because she forgot to let Bastet back inside, but I don’t blame her, and I don’t think anybody else does. It’s not like she had never spent a night outside, she did once in a while, usually in Oregon before we came here to Texas. But this place is different.
I feel like I’m the last one in the family to be arriving at this point, not that I was hopeful before but more that it wasn’t quite real to me. After all, we never found her body, and we never will. A loved one recently suggested that Bastet might still be alive in someone else’s care, and I don’t know why, but I was so angry at this person I up and left the conversation. I spent God knows how long on my hands and knees with a pair of tweezers, collecting whatever I could find of Bastet’s grey and white fur in the carpet by my parent’s bed. I don’t know what is happening to me, its like I’ve gone mad. I had no idea how much I would miss the fluffy little queen we brought home.
Is this a bad sign that I feel so terrible at the loss of Bastet? Was it her loss that triggered this bout of depression I’m in (that’s another story)? I’ve cried twice today. I don’t hear her begging for her breakfast in the morning, I don’t pick her up and hug her any more, only to remember that white cat hair shows up rather well on a black shirt? I’ll never say goodbye to her, give her a sendoff, a last meal, a goodbye hug and a kiss. I will never get to bury Bastet with the dignity and love that she deserved. Sad songs make me teary eyed now. And I don’t even know how to end what I’m writing here. I miss you Bastet, I really do.
I’m not asking for you to fix things or make me happy, or even say anything at all. I just want to have put this out there as some kind of favor to Bastet, even if nobody reads this. I feel like I can at least do that. Why have I been crying? I'm a grown man for fuck's sake. Don't tell me its ok.
Alright, lets get this over with.
A long time ago, I met a kitten on the floor of a seedy pet shop in Oregon. There were other kittens, but she alone out of all of them absolutely demanded attention from my brothers and I. She cried out in that small, sweet way kittens do, and wanted to be right next to us all the time, even climbing right into our laps at any opportunity. She just about followed us out the door, but I suppose she may as well have since just days later, my parents bought her, and one November evening we brought her to what would be her home. I named her Bastet.
This is definitely going to become something much too long at the pace I’m going. In brief, Bastet was as “cat” as you can imagine, but at the same time she was an absolute princess. She was named after a goddess, and she knew it. But Bastet wasn’t all sass, in fact quite the opposite. She truly was a sweet kitty, and she liked to pretend she was above me, and my family, and especially the dog, but there were plenty of times that I’ve seen the two sharing a corner of the bed, or an armchair, or even snuggled up together on the couch.
A month ago, Bastet disappeared in the night. We investigated, we searched, and we never found her. But we know what happened, the evidence is quite clear. She was attacked by a predator, chased down, and taken from us. My mom says it was her fault because she forgot to let Bastet back inside, but I don’t blame her, and I don’t think anybody else does. It’s not like she had never spent a night outside, she did once in a while, usually in Oregon before we came here to Texas. But this place is different.
I feel like I’m the last one in the family to be arriving at this point, not that I was hopeful before but more that it wasn’t quite real to me. After all, we never found her body, and we never will. A loved one recently suggested that Bastet might still be alive in someone else’s care, and I don’t know why, but I was so angry at this person I up and left the conversation. I spent God knows how long on my hands and knees with a pair of tweezers, collecting whatever I could find of Bastet’s grey and white fur in the carpet by my parent’s bed. I don’t know what is happening to me, its like I’ve gone mad. I had no idea how much I would miss the fluffy little queen we brought home.
Is this a bad sign that I feel so terrible at the loss of Bastet? Was it her loss that triggered this bout of depression I’m in (that’s another story)? I’ve cried twice today. I don’t hear her begging for her breakfast in the morning, I don’t pick her up and hug her any more, only to remember that white cat hair shows up rather well on a black shirt? I’ll never say goodbye to her, give her a sendoff, a last meal, a goodbye hug and a kiss. I will never get to bury Bastet with the dignity and love that she deserved. Sad songs make me teary eyed now. And I don’t even know how to end what I’m writing here. I miss you Bastet, I really do.
I’m not asking for you to fix things or make me happy, or even say anything at all. I just want to have put this out there as some kind of favor to Bastet, even if nobody reads this. I feel like I can at least do that. Why have I been crying? I'm a grown man for fuck's sake. Don't tell me its ok.
