In Memoriam

This is my Cinder.  She died today.  She was a good cat.

I don't know how to feel about this.  I'm sad, of course, but kind of relieved.  For the past month she's been wasting away.  The vet said it was likely cancer because every other option - every treatable option - we tried and she got no better.  It was time.  She was suffering.  The past few days our house has smelled of death - rot and infection.  Her eyes oozed puss, and she kept falling over - too weak to walk.  So it was time.  But I didn't want to let her go.  She was my girl.

The last several years she hasn't liked me much.  I brought two more cats into the house.  One took over my room, which was also hers, and threw her out.  I didn't stop it.  She seemed happy enough to hang with my dad and Greyson needed me more.  Or that's what I'd like to think.  Because Greyson is very attached and Cinder was always a little standoffish.  But she was still my girl.  I hope she knew.

I got her in the summer of 2001, I think.  She was fat and happy and a little bit mean.  She liked to bite me on the head in the middle of the night.  She purred when she ate.  And "guarded" me when we were outside and a dog, person, bicyclist, or another cat came by.  By which I mean she ran to me and stood in front of me growling.  I think, though, she looked to me for protection.  And ran to me because she knew I wouldn't let anything hurt her.  Though maybe not.  She beat the ever living shit out of this fox that tried to eat her once.  That was when she was younger.

I called her Cinder after Cinderella, because the first place she went when I brought her home was inside the fireplace.  She came out covered in cinders and soot.  The name stuck.  It suited her.  Not because she was sweet, she wasn't.  She was the Grimm's version of Cinderella - dark and haunted.  I can totally see her letting her stepsisters cut off their toes and whittle their feet, not saying one word, then sending her birds to notify the prince of his mistake - and maybe laughing about it a little.  She also would've danced while her birds pecked out the eyes of her stepfamily while at her wedding.  Cinder could hold a grudge.  But for all that she was . . . mine.  And I loved her.

She used to take the heads of the mice she slaughtered.  I don't know what she did with them.  I imagine there's a pile of hundreds of rotting mice skulls in her little hidey-hole under the bay window outside our house.  My girl was a good hunter.

But she'd cuddle too.  And purr.  She loved being brushed.  Went crazy over peacock feathers and catnip.  She'd jump so high when I first got her.  So high.  In more recent years she stopped jumping.  She was old and I imagine her bones ached.  My brother bought my parents a set of stairs for their bed so she could sleep with them.  

She'd do this think where she'd just stare at you.  She'd walk into a room and stare at you.  For hours if you stayed put.  It was very creepy.  Mostly because she didn't really want anything from you.  She wouldn't let you touch her, so no petting or brushing.  She wouldn't take any treats or food, so she wasn't hungry.  She just stare.  Sometimes she'd follow you around the house, just staring.  Looking kind of angry.  It was weird.  I'm going to miss it.  I'm going to miss her.

I miss her already.

It seems appropriate that it's raining today where I am.

The world weeps.  Right?

My poor girl.