I feel like a lunatic right now. I was almost weeping on the bus home, ready to break the dam and openly cry because I read this story about this man, Lesism, who reminisced losing his cat thirteen years ago. The story was so poignant that I could not help myself but reminisce about the loss of my first cat.
It happened in no way, shape or form as to what Lesism narrates on his blog. I was about thirteen years old when I adopted this kitty, with his beautiful orange fur and his big yellow eyes. He was quiet and timid, always hiding when strangers came to the house, but he was the most affectionate pet I had ever had. My parents were living in the countryside at the time, so we had this big house surrounded by fields and land, where my cat could run and hunt, bringing home dead birds and loads of flees that would suck on my blood when he slept in my bed. He followed me everywhere I went. I was solitary, had friends in school but never anybody who I could share my true self with, so I imagined stories and I wrote, accompanied by my cat who loved me more than I could ever imagine. Rethinking of all these moments bring tears to my eyes. He was truly the best cat ever.
For the first six months before he got neutered, we had to take him everywhere we went otherwise he would have wandered off somewhere and never returned, his hormones pushing him to another home. I recall taking him on vacation to Normandy, and him being so scared of traveling, then scratching the walls in the hotel room, wondering what sort of hell we had exposed him to. He felt safe sleeping on the back deck right below the rear windshield, so he made it a habit to sleep there all the time. When we came back from this trip, the car had become his sleeping area and we had to be careful when leaving the house to check whether he was hiding somewhere.
When he was one year old, he gave me my first moment of panic. He crossed the road and got lost for several days, us worrying so much of what could have happened to him, me thinking that he was dead in a gutter somewhere. But after three days, he reappeared and I just felt so happy, it made my heart burst.
He gave me my biggest moments of joy for almost three years. In 1998, my parents decided to move to the South of France, to a bigger city, so we would sell the house and live in an apartment from then on. I didn’t know what effect it would have on my cat, who was so used to being outside. In my mind, my cat would come with us and we would find a way to help him get acclimated to his new environment. There was no way we would leave him behind. We slowly organized our move, packing things into boxes, getting rid of furniture, rubbish of all sorts and just skimming through all the extra unnecessary stuff we did not need. I don’t know whether my cat understood exactly what was going on, but I know for a fact that he sensed that some sort of a change was happening.
Then in November 1998, he just disappeared. His fur was thick and beautiful, the best it had ever been. He was fat and heavy, a little lion, so gorgeous it makes me cry to remember him in all his glory. One night he left the house and never came back. I held hope for several days that he had gotten lost like the previous time, and that he would find his way home. But he never reappeared. I don’t know what happened to him; I pessimistically decided that he got shot by a hunter who thought he was a big rabbit or something. Maybe some sadistic psycho killed him to take his fur. I don’t know and will never know but to this day, I still remember him, and I still cry for him. I painted a portrait of him in one of my idle moments, just to save an image of him that I could look at every time I felt lonely.
This cat was my best friend. He was my confident, my source of joy and comfort and I will always miss him. Nowadays I have new cats, but I try not to get as much attached to them as I was to him because I don’t want to feel that pain again when they pass.
I loved you Lupin. You were a true little warrior.
The Manicheans 