It's taken me a couple of weeks to get myself to the point, where I felt able to post this latest piece. Those, who've known me for a long time understand that I've always tried to keep a bit of separation between my artistic/fandom endeavours, and my professional ones, which has long included the use of a pen name for my writing (which many authors choose to do).

Sometimes, however, you are forced into a place and time, where those lines blur, for whatever reason.
For the short and dirty, in my professional life, I have been involved in biological research and animal care for a number of years (and have several University degrees in the same), and most of the research has involved working with large cats such as cougars, tigers, jaguars, lions, leopards, etc.
Indeed, I have worked with such animals, in numerous, varying capacities from zookeeper to researcher, since 1989.

This particular piece takes some manner of inspiration from every large cat I ever worked with, and whom eventually moved on to the next place, where they can forever hunt wild and free of all concerns, but it is most particularly about a truly extraordinary male cougar named Drifter, who I had the incomparable privilege of knowing and working with for over eleven years. Drifter was over sixteen years old when he passed on Rememberance Day (i.e. 11 November), and had been under the direct care and stewardship of  shastacat, for essentially his entire life. If you would like to see pictures of what Drifter looked like, I highly suggest checking out Shastacat's page, as he has posted many.
As hard as it was (and still is) to deal with, I am eternally grateful that I was able to be near Drifter when he passed...

One of the hardest things to deal with is the realisation that, no matter what we, as humans might think or wish, none of these animals have lifespans as long as ours, and there is always going to be the inevitability of facing the end of one of these special beings, whom you have come to know and deeply care for. Often, on top of this, are the deep feelings, as irrational as such feeling might be, that maybe you have no right to feel that way, especially in the case, where an animal that you worked with/cared for is not your own. (indeed many zookeepers have often expressed this very thing). All the reassurances in the world that you were still, nevertheless, a part of that particular animal's life, sometimes nevertheless continue to ring hollow, at least until enough of that universal balm of time has been applied to soothe those raw wounds.


To quote another dear friend, and fellow cougar owner and keeper, who lost his own 21 year old male cougar in 2006:

"Klandagi is dead... The Lord of the Forest is dead. There is an empty place in the lodge, and my heart is filled with sorrow..."

Drifter of Felis Concolor: Entered into Eternal Rest on 11 November 2015.