The Cat Distribution System
Grief and pets and deep thoughts on whether they become friends on the other side of the rainbow bridge.
Our cat died this week. I’m not going to sugarcoat, I am sad. He was fourteen, so we weren’t naive to the fact that his years were numbered, but we really thought we had more time. When my oldest daughter went away to college in the fall, her biggest worry was that Cheddar would die while she was gone. Mercifully, she was home when this happened.1
A couple of weeks ago, Cheddar had stopped eating and drinking, which was NOT like him. The dude loved food, so I knew that wasn’t good. Long story short, after a jillion dollars of tests and veterinary visits, he was diagnosed with heart failure, so we made the decision to put him down before he suffered further. It sucked.
I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife for people, but I do believe in one for animals. Even if it resides in the confines of my own delusion, I don’t care. The past few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about previous pets and how they all might be chilling together in kitty heaven.
I love cats. I would have told you, without a doubt, that I was a cat person before we adopted our dog during COVID, but now I refuse to choose sides.
My first real pet as an adult was a grey, furry kitten I adopted from a coworker when I was in college.
Her name was Sammi. Her nickname was little bitch.
I don’t have many pictures of Sammi, partly because back then we didn’t have phones in our cameras, partly because they are in an album in storage somewhere, but mainly because she was an absolute menace. I loved her dearly, spoiled the crap out of her, but she happened to hate everyone who wasn’t me, though she hated me sometimes, too.
She had the weirdest habits. She’d take my underwear out of the laundry and leave it all over the house. She would somehow get into the cabinets and chew through boxes, not to eat anything, just to be a terror and make my food stale.
When I graduated from college and got my first job, she started tearing up my apartment when I was gone all day. So, the vet suggested I get Sammi a friend. I thought this was a terrible idea: you have one cat who destroys your house, so get another? But I went along with it, and my brother and I went to the humane society in Portland, where we found the world’s most amazing cat, Big Boy.
We had no background on him, but my guess was that he was surrendered by an elderly person or someone who died, because I cannot imagine ANYONE getting rid of this cat. To this day, I consider him the best cat I’ve ever met in my life, no offense to my late Cheddar. He was smart, sweet, cuddly, and loved everyone. People who hated cats liked him. I can’t tell you the number of times someone would meet him and say, “You know, I’m not a cat person, but I’d totally take this one.”
Anyway, the vet’s plan worked. Though it took a few days for Sammi to tolerate Big Boy, she eventually came around and totally mellowed out. Don’t get me wrong, she was still a huge bitch, but she stopped destroying things. Win, win!
Then I got married, moved in with my husband, and we had a baby. Big Boy cuddled with the baby the way he’d cuddled with my pregnant belly, not in a smothery way, but in a “oh, thank you for making this baby for me” way. He loved babies and kids more than anything.
Sammi, on the other hand, gave the baby one sniff, vomited, then ran away and hid. She wasn’t violent toward kids, but it was painfully clear she didn’t like them.
When our first baby was one, both cats made the trek from Portland to Pennsylvania with us, which, if you’ve ever traveled with two cats, is a whole logistical thing that I can’t believe we pulled off.
As more kids came along… three more little girls over as many years…Big Boy was in heaven.
And Sammi was in hell. She HATED her life. She would pee on the kids’ stuff and hiss at them. We put her on prozac. Didn’t help. And she started to full-on attack my mom and mother-in-law when they visited. Specifically them. So odd.
Not Big Boy, he loved them:
When it came time for us to move across the country again, to Seattle, we knew that Sammi could not tolerate the trip with us. She was 13 at that point, older and more frail, so we decided the kindest thing to do would be to surrender her.2
This is going to make me sound like a terrible person, but it was such a relief to leave her behind. I probably should have rehomed her years before; she was stressed around kids, but I had so much guilt, even cleaning up cat pee for years, and force-feeding her antidepressants. In the end, she probably made a great cat for someone, or lived the rest of her days with more fuel for her hate fire.
In Seattle, Big Boy thrived. He was an indoor-outdoor cat, and I know, you’re not supposed to do that, but since he’d always been that way, it felt cruel to restrict him. Plus, everyone loved him,3 and he was very street smart. He visited the local elementary school during recess. We frequently got calls from the neighborhood PCC market that he’d gone into the store to visit the patrons. They were happy to see him, but sadly, cats weren’t allowed.
He was as thrilled as you can imagine he was when we had our fifth baby.
But being an indoor-outdoor cat came back to bite, literally. A few weeks after Rowan was born, Big Boy went on an adventure and didn’t return. He was 13, but in good health. We put up posters. I dragged my five children under 7 (including a newborn) to the humane society to look through the surrendered cats every single day. And one day, flipping through the “deceased animal” binder, I came across his photo. He’d obviously been in a fight with a raccoon or maybe a coyote. It was horrible.
If you didn’t catch the 6-week postpartum with five kids under seven, note, let’s just say, in general, I wasn’t doing well at this point. My cat died due to my own negligence (at least that’s what I told myself), and I was still dealing with the loss of my best friend a few months prior.4 So, in a stunning act of good judgment, in my postpartum grieving fog, I drove to a cat rescue facility and adopted two orange kittens.5
I would tell anyone who just had a baby, let alone their FIFTH baby, DO NOT ADOPT KITTENS YOU ABSOLUTE MANIAC! PLEASE SEE A THERAPIST PRONTO!
What was my point?
Oh, right.
Sammi was terrible, but she led to Big Boy, and Big Boy’s death led to Cheddar, and as sad as many bad decisions were folded in there, I’m so happy that they were all a part of my life.
I’ve thought many times over the years about how much Cheddar would have loved Big Boy. So it gives me peace to think that they are up in kitty heaven right now raising hell together.6
I’m not one of those “everything happens for a reason” people, but I guess I’m clinging to silver linings right now.
Rest easy, sweet kitty.
xo Emily
As it turns out, we cancelled our trip to Puerto Vallarta for spring break because of all the cartel violence last month, so she was here to say goodbye.
Please don’t @ me about irresponsible pet ownership. Believe me, we kept her longer than anyone else would have!
For example, when we moved from PA, people all over town came by to say goodbye to him. Not necessarily our family, but our cat.
And if you know my life or have read my first book, you know that things did not get better from here.
Sadly, Jack had some health problems and had to be put down when he was about six. Is this the most depressing substack you’ve ever read?
And I hope they are avoiding Sammi, though I imagine she’s in the other place….
Sending you a big hug. It’s so hard to let go of our fur babies.
Sweet Cheddar, and all his ancestors. I love you.