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| Elsie being cute |
Last weekend my wife and I
said goodbye to our friend, our family member, our cat Elsie.
If you don’t understand why
someone would feel intense grief at the loss of a pet or you’re thinking, “It’s
just a cat” or whatever, then this post is not for you. It’s a vast internet. You don’t have to be here.
But for many humans the loss
of a pet is traumatic.
Elsie was with us for over
15 years. My wife Beth adopted Elsie a
few months before we started dating, which I’ve always joked meant that she had
Elsie longer than she had me. As is
often the case, the cat picked out her human rather than the other way
around. Beth originally went to the
Humane Society to adopt another cat, but Elsie got her attention by rubbing up
against the cage. The decision was made. Elsie was one year old and had just weaned a
litter; Beth was looking to make some changes in her life, too, which included
getting her first cat mostly at the behest of her roommate at the time. Elsie and Beth became best friends.
I met Elsie a few months later,
when she insisted on sitting on my lap even though I was allergic (something
I’ve since gotten over … more-or-less).
I’ve loved her ever since. I’ve
always liked cats. My grandma and other
family members had cats when I was growing up, but we never had cats at my
house.
