gemini://gem.lizsugar.me/2024/01/07/eulogy-for-a-cat.gmi

I've had various belongings left by exes, some wanted them back, some did not. Both scenarios have their own hiccups, but when someone doesn't want their stuff back then I have to make a decision about what to do with it. I recently gave away from my ex's books to a small little library on a local street corner. Even though her copy of _Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition_ was signed with a personalized message to her by the author Julia Kaye, hopefully someone finds value in it. Her blanket, though, I haven't figured out what to do with. When I realized I still had these things, it was frustrating, hurtful, confusing.

I've never been close to any of my family members who died. In January 2022 I had an uncle die of COVID-19. Given the way his kids turned out (super trumpy, super anti-vax, super bigoted), I have to believe they got it from somewhere. I feel nothing about his death. If he was the type to be those ways, then I do not feel any sorrow for the illness he bought upon himself. And my grandparents in that branch of the family are also dead, but like, I never had a relationship with them. My dad even forced me to be a pallbearer for his mother, but even in that moment I felt nothing for her. I just never connected to them at all. Oh well.

That's a bit of a different story. I was close to him, incredibly so. He never hurt me like any of my exes or my family. His loss is very different. He was a pure being. He was the longest, healthiest relationship I've ever had, with anyone. He was there through all of the hardest times in my life, and he always loved me perfectly.

This was briefly titled something like "artifacts that loved ones leave behind," and I intended to talk about the things I keep stumbling upon that remind me of him. His old toys, his collar, tags, his meds.., the myriad food I bought to try to get him to eat in his final months....

I don't know why I'm struggling so much to write about him. My grief keeps coming out about how important he was to me and how lonely I am without him, I'm always talking about my loss, I'm rarely talking about what made him so great.

But maybe that's actually what's so hard about this. Because it's not the material things he left behind. It's all the memories. I have photos of him on my walls, inked pawprints, a plaster pawprint, his collars, a bottle of his hair, his tag is on my necklace, but those don't mean anything on their own. It's the memories they invoke. It's the memories that those memories lead into. And every one of those memories threatens to turn me into an inconsolable mess. Because he was everything to me. And at least when he was here, I had him and could hold him. But now I have only a few objects and memories. And I can't shove my face into memories when I'm crying like I could him.

For starters, he was an absolutely gorgeous blue cat. He's a shelter cat that they found on the side of the road with mange(?) on half his face, so there's no actual pedigree. But that won't stop me. All of his physical and personality traits line up with the Chartreux, or the French Blue. I will get picky about this actually! He's not simply a grey cat. Grey cats are great, nothing against them, but he's blue. Blue cats are a _silver_-grey. And he certainly was.

He entered my life on January 6th 2009. My then-fiancée-now-ex and I were heartbroken after one of our ferrets died over Christmas break while we were out of town. He had a lot of health issues and it just finally was his time. We had a competent person watching them and taking care of him, but when it happens it just happens. We decided to fill the ferret-sized hole in our hearts with two cats. A bit, uneven sure, but the best short-sighted decision I ever ever made. We came home that night with two cats: Duster and a tuxedo that my ex named Pinto. The shelter woman and my ex kept trying to steer me towards this sweet cat named Lena I think. She was super friendly and relaxed and chill. She would have made an amazing cat I know. But Duster, then called Babar, caught my eye and I couldn't look away. For one, he was playing with Pinto (Xylophone) right there in the kitten room. CanNOT ignore that! But he was also a bit of a dick. He kept taking a toy over to the door that separated the kitten room from the adult cat room, pushing it and his paws under the door and playing with the toy in sight of the adult cats. You would hear a lot of hissing and yowling whenever he did this. It was hilarious, dude was a little stinker. I stood strong and I came home with Duster that night.

In what would become a recurring, and incredibly obnoxious but understandable, character trait, Duster did an anxiety poo in his carrier on the way home. I took him to our bathroom to clean him up, which he hated of course, but after it was all done and I dried him, he kept rubbing his face and body against me as I sat there on the floor with him. He was so so sweet and clearly appreciated the help, after the fact. I truly think we bonded in that moment. He loved spending all his time near me. In my bed when we were sleeping - he used to do this thing when he was younger where he'd pretend to be a hat for whoever I had sleeping over with me; but when it was just me he'd be sleeping on my shoulder. At my desk on the side, where he would then slowly roll his way onto my keyboard and right in front of me. Or on my lap in my chair where he just enjoyed being for hours and hours as I did homework or played video games or helped people in my support group.

He did, of course, figure out how to push the buttons of my roommate's female orange cat (I only specify because girl orange cats are very rare), who hated every other cat in existence. He rarely touched her. Instead he'd be just around the corner from her, or in eyesight as she tried to relax. He'd sit three feet away from her and simply watch her eat. It drove her up the wall.

Duster and Pinto were inseparable, until my ex and I separated of course. It was beyond mere friends, it looked like lovers sometimes tbh. Duster and Olive bonded more as friends. They too were inseparable, but Duster never tried to mount Olive. They loved to cuddle and sleep together, they ate together, they explored together, they hung out with me together, they did everything together. Olive and Duster were just perfect together. I had no idea how to introduce a cat to another cat. The first night I had Olive, I took Duster into my room with me and closed the door. Olive had the food and the litter box, I knew Duster would be fine overnight. But Olive sat at the door crying, an obnoxious but understandable behavior he still does ten years later..... I couldn't sleep and I had work in the morning. So I opened the door, told them to be nice, and went to bed. When I woke up to feed them, Duster was sitting in his usual spot waiting for food, and Olive was sitting right next to him. When I got home from work, they were both sitting at the front door waiting for me. They connected so quickly and so deeply, it was just.. I had a family. And truly Duster was the center of it.

After Sarah and Pinto left and before I got Olive, there was maybe two years of just me and Duster on our own. It was difficult, we were both getting lonelier and lonelier. Duster start trying to aggressively play with me when I would leave for work in the morning. He was so lonely, all he had was me, and he hated when I left him alone. Getting Olive for him made a world of difference. He had someone now, a friend, a buddy, someone to play with, someone to cuddle and touch and groom and watch the pigeons with. He became such a happy cat with Olive around. My camera roll is FULL of photos of these two being adorable together for ten. years.

I really do feel blessed at how long I got to be with Duster. January 6th 2009 to August 5th 2023 is.. my entire adulthood. Five months have passed since his death, and none of it feels real. I feel outside of time. How can anything important happen in my life without him? He was there for everything important. He was THE person I could come to when I was struggling. He never judged me or hurt me or made me feel bad. He never left me alone when I was crying. He'd wait until I was more settled before he took care of his own needs. He rarely left my side at all in fact. Even when he was outside and exploring unleashed, he would come when I called him. He loved to explore and see new things and go new places, but he wasn't going to leave me to do it.

He loved being outside so much actually. One night in an old apartment before Olive, I was restless and awake and chewing on some stuff. There was some scaffolding attached to the front of my building at the time and one level of it lined up perfectly with my bedroom windows. I climbed out there, and in no time he joined me. He loved being out in the night air, high up, checking everything out. And when I was finally ready to go back inside, he followed me in when I called to him. In my next apartment we had a stoop! In good weather we'd sit out there and read or just watch the neighborhood. Where Olive was skittish and would jump back inside at people or noises, Duster was curious but never flighty. My first apartment in California had a balcony and the two of them adored it out there. Duster would race to go out anytime the balcony door was open. He'd take his time coming back in like a kid who didn't want to leave the park. And then when we came back to Chicago our place has a balcony and he was out there constantly. Though he did take up a new habit of licking the concrete on the Chicago balcony. Maybe Chicago cement is tastier than Californian cement. I wish he could have told me why.

Something my wife repeatedly said was "that cat loves you so much." By the time I met her I'd been with Duster for 11 years. It was just like, normal, to me. But she saw it. The way I looked at him and took care of him. The way he looked at me, followed me around, and was always at my side. The way he would shove his face into whatever part of my body was near and fall asleep. About Olive she regularly says "he really loves you" and Sabot, her own cat, she says "gosh he adores you." Which it's true, Olive adores me, but he also adores any trans fem (boy's a bit of a chaser to be honest), and Sabot is actually really sweet with me despite largely being standoffish and anxious (I'm a cat whisperer). But there was something in her voice when she said of Duster "that cat loves you so much." Like she recognized how deep our bond was, beyond anything else. He really was everything to me.

Eulogy for a Cat