Our much-loved Ricky is no longer with us. He died this past Thursday morning. A veterinarian came to our home, and Ricky went the best way one could hope for. He had liver cancer, and he was sick for over three weeks. We’ve been living in a sort of bubble of caring for him. But even on his last morning, he wanted to be with me, in my lap or by my side. He loved everyone, but I was his person, and he was my cat.
I miss him so much. I keep turning around, expecting to see him. But we had almost sixteen years with him, and I know he had a very good life. Early this morning when I was still in bed, missing him being there, I was thinking about what a crazy kitten he was. He’d raced around the house until he conked out. Our younger child picked him out from the shelter (as she likes to remind me) because he was chewing on the cage bars, and she thought he was so wonderfully weird.
This is the first time in about thirty years that we have not had a cat in the house.
So small,
his absence a massive void–
the collapse of a star
leaves an echo of light.
Resa McConaghy created this image of Ricky from one of my photos.