Now if you’re not an animal lover or the parent of a beloved pet or you wish to stay resolute in holiday cheer (and I don’t blame you), this blog post is probably not for you. And if you follow me on social media, you might have seen me express some of my emotions already.

But I’m a writer and when the need burns in me, I am powerless to fight it.

No matter how difficult it will be.

So…

When we arrived home after I sat in the back seat of my sister’s car, with her and my brother-in-law in the front, in order to deliver the peaceful little furry body wrapped in my late grandmother’s wool shawl to my veterinarian’s office so they could take care of him for me, my sister urged me strongly to go right upstairs to my office and, “Write. Just write. Write what you’re feeling. Write about him. Get it out and write.”

I couldn’t do it. I didn’t realize it at the time; I wouldn’t realize it until I woke up in the house without him the next morning, that I hadn’t really allowed it to hit me.

My wee beautiful baby boy cat Axl was gone.

Ah, those stages of grief, so true. In some part of my mind, even though he died right by my side, even though I snuggled his lifeless furry cheek with my lips and nose, breathing him in one last time before I moved away from the vet tech who was holding him in his topless kitty carrier, I wouldn’t allow it to soak in.

At the time my sister urged me to write, in my mind, I decided I’d make a quick announcement on Facebook the next day when I felt I had the strength and words to do so, and this would explain why I was checking out. Then I’d go quietly into my grief and my memories and sort myself out before reemerging, in control of myself and my emotions.

But then, as it does, it soaked in.

And I want it out.

But in getting this out I’m going to let it out, and also honor a being who existed on this earth for absolutely no other reason than to allow me to love him and to love me in return. To make me laugh. To give me company and comfort. To greet me in the morning and give me a sleep well look at night (because he let his sister have night cuddles—he claimed the mornings).

Because I will miss him.

I will miss him.

I miss him.

I’ll miss the sound of his little paws pounding on the carpet runners down the hall when he’d race to the food bowls and the cacophony of his mad dash up the stairs to my office where he’d stop at the top and look around like he’d never been in that room in his life and couldn’t imagine such a place existed.

I’ll miss him coming to stand by my chair at my desk and looking up at me with the plain communication of, “It’s not time to work. It’s time to cuddle.” And then he’d be in my lap, purring and patting my hands when I’d try to type because they were supposed to be engaged in petting him. Or alternately, his look would say, “It’s treat time. Get yourself downstairs and handle that.”

And make no mistake, I got myself downstairs and handled that.

I’ll miss him rounding the corner of the couch of an evening and staring at me with quiet deliberation until I rearranged my body so there was a pocket he could collapse into for cuddles. I’ll miss watching him leap up to the couch and settle in front of me. I’ll miss his purring as I scratched his ears and neck and stroked his body. I’ll miss how he would shove his face in my hand and we’d just rest like that, him nestled in the curve of my body, resting in the palm of my hand.

I’ll miss looking down the hall and seeing him lounged all the way at the end, in the doorway to the master bath, apropos, the master of his domain, like it was he who paid the mortgage.

I’ll miss the impossibility of wrapping a present around him. I’ll miss cleaning the gunk that would form in his eyes. I’ll miss him lounging on the bathroom counter and then roaming it, claiming the sink as his territory while I tried to brush my teeth. I’ll miss him waking me up at night to pet him and then when I’d fall asleep doing just that, the tap of his little paw telling me he wasn’t quite done with me. I’ll miss opening a cabinet and him being right there to push his way in no matter what might obstruct his path. I’ll miss coming in from the garage and him sitting there waiting for me. I’ll miss the smell of his fur. I’ll miss the soft gray tufts of his ears arising from the creamy fur of his head. I’ll miss the strange and wondrous curlicues of his whiskers. I’ll miss how he’d sometimes twist his neck and stare up at me with those huge, gorgeous, intelligent blue eyes while I was watching TV, oddly like he loved the look of me just as I utterly adored his impossible, grumpy beauty.

I’ll miss how he calmly accepted his sister giving him kisses, even if he never gave them in return.

I’ll even miss how they started fighting in the end, when he would need a lot of alone time tucked in dark corners, so she came to me and cuddled when he would never let her do that. And as alpha of the house, he wanted her to know that he might be ill, but he still ruled the roost.

She didn’t fight back. She gave him that. It was his. And she loved her brother. She’s proving that now. She’s quit eating, her favorite thing to do. And she’s losing weight. And when I tried to carry on as normal and was doing my crunches and stretches on the mats in the workout room, she came in as she always does, but instead of roaming around me as is her wont, she sat facing the door, waiting for him to arrive, because he always eventually did. And of course, I gave up stretching and started sobbing. And when she came to lay beside me, her back to me, like she was angry with me, and I curled into her furry body, my little queen who is not lovey and touchy unless it is she who allows you to be, she burst into purrs and shoved her face in my palm like her brother used to do and we lay together, her resting in the palm of my hand, me weeping into her fur.

I have my old desk chair from pre-renovation that I was going to throw away. But it has his claw marks in the arms. So I shall keep it and that memory of him…for a while.

I have tufts of his fur from when he last cuddled with me on the couch the night before he died. And I’ve set them someplace safe. And I’ll keep them…for a while.

I recognize the sheer lunacy of grief that I hesitated before throwing away a chunk of food he’d bitten into and left on the floor. I recognize that it might not be entirely healthy that I may not ever throw away his medicine bottles that are in the fridge. Not because they remind me of the times we shared when I held him in my arms to give him his meds, but because on those bottles, it says “Axl Ashley” and those two words indicate just how entirely he was mine.

And with intrepid resistance to grief, I have set the two kitty ornaments I bought for my babies for Christmas when there was still hope he’d be with us right by a lamp in my bedroom. With the ugly fate of life, those ornaments arrived the day he died. But I’m going to keep them there for as long as I like, remembering that hope I’d had that he’d hang on, even if it was dashed, and every night when I turn on that lamp, and then turn it off, I will remember my wee, sweet boy and the fact that from the very moment his handsome kitty self was put in my arms, I fell tragically in love.

Truly.
Madly.
Utterly.
Tragically.
In love.

I miss him.

I miss him.

I miss him.

I have been asked by one of my Rock Chicks if it would be okay if folks would do something for their local Humane Societies in Axl’s memory. And as I told her, I would love that. And if he was half as intelligent as I’d convinced myself he was, Axl would be honored by that.

But mostly, even if it lasts just for fleeting moments after you’ve read this blog, what I think would be beautiful is if you gave your cat, dog, bird, husband, wife, son, daughter, mother, father, sister, brother, whoever whatever expression of love you’re comfortable with giving. You sometimes don’t recognize it as you live and breathe in this daily tangle that is life, but you are truly, madly, utterly and tragically in love with them.

And if just for that fleeting moment and then finding others as the years slide by, make sure they know it.