The Weeping Hairless Apes
I first wrote this as an Instagram caption, when we brought Tig home on October 6, 2020.
Well, we’ve cried at least once a day since we brought this over-confident bit of a thing home.
Like idiots, we thought waiting a year to bring home a new cat would be enough time to dull down the grief for Flapjack, our sweet (terrible) CatJack, but, well.
I mistook “Growing accustomed to his absence” for “being ready for a new cat” and, oh-ho-ho, is my heart ever paying for my hubris now. Matt knew, though. But he also knew how much I (thought I) needed this, a little creature companion to love and be loved by, so he pushed ahead for my sake. Stupid. How could I be so stupid.
She is delightful.
Within the first day, she clearly had decided that she owns our house, it is hers now. She chirps to greet us and forces us to pet her with headbutts and full-body slams. We are hers now, too; I can see it in her confident, curious eyes.
She is the opposite of Flapjack in every way and she is lovely and we keep breaking down to have a good sob because, I guess, a year later we’re still grieving a cat who was so much more than a cat to us, he was a member of our family and, even all this time later, the hurt is still so raw that he’s gone.
She’s lying at my feet now, completely asleep, with her belly turned up and that cat expression that looks like a smile. Ah! She’s dreaming! Her little lips are jibbering and her whiskers are flinching. She’s so small.
Our house is big and she is small and she owns this place now, just like she owns us. We’ll be her big hairless apes who burst into tears every so often and she’ll be our cat who sees us with her big, self-assured eyes that demand we shower her with affection. At some point we’ll go a day without crying, and then another, and she’ll become our Tig, she’ll become a part of our heart, our home, our family.
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Aaaaand here's this absolute goblin today, five years later:
My angel. My Tig.
Comments (5)
All the feels and all the loves and omg lookit that beautiful silly angel darling and her beans. A delight. <3
As a proud Cat Butler I know how hard it is to lose them. You need time to grieve, but then you have to keep the love going. It's like George Carlin said: we get into the relationship knowing it will end in tears. But boy is it ever worth it.
She's beauty. She's grace.
I feed the "Feral Dozen" at my wife's care center and a neighborhood cat (AKA Yard Cat or Garage Cat) here... probably more than that as I've seen a few of the other locals streaking out of the garage. I know its really, truly fall when Yard Cat expresses a desire to come inside by crawling up the back screen porch door and meowing to come in, she will then hang out on a table waiting for me to go to bed so she can sleep next to me. I'll know it's winter when she crawls between the covers. Why does she always sleep so as her weight on the covers traps me in bed? It's a mystery.
I remember tearing up when I first read this. Five years already! Yay for the cats in our lives (and those who went before...)!