Goodbye to Graydie

[darkemeralds]

April 4 2009 was the first time I posted on here under the tag "Sam and Dean the stray cats". I thought they were brothers, and Sam was theone that was coming inside my house a month later.

Eventually I figured out that Sam was a female, and that "Dean" was probably her son. Dean never did come indoors. He led a hard life, and by the time my neighbors Wally and Nick adopted him, he was sickly and didn't live very long.

Meanwhile, one day at least a year after Sam adopted me, her former human knocked on my door. He was trying to learn the fate of his cat Graydie, now my cat Sam. He and his mom, evicted from a nearby rental house, had been forced to move to a place that didn't allow pets. Graydie had disappeared at moving time. He had come around for weeks calling for her, leaving food out, trying to find her.

Finally, he traced her to my house. He couldn't take her back, but he was ready to pay for cat food and veterinary care. I told him she was doing well, even coming indoors sometimes at night and in bad weather. I never heard from him again.

Graydie lived with me for almost thirteen years. She sat in my lap exactly once, for 20 seconds, but she always liked to be near me. She would follow me when I left the house on foot, sometimes all the way to the busy street where I caught my morning bus. She would go out for a walks with me around the block.

Over the years, she slowed down, of course. She stopped going all the way around the block with me, then stopped following me. After a while, she couldn't jump up on the bed anymore, and slept on a heated rug under my desk. Walking became harder and harder.

She stopped eating sometime in December, and a few days before Christmas she died.

She was quiet, and she was beautiful, and once in a while she purred. I think she was happy here.

Young Graydie when she first adopted me:

Graydie on her last day:

Comments

[sffan]

Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm glad she had a good life with you (or at least you-adjacent). *bighugs*

[darkemeralds]

Thank you!

[umadoshi]

What a good beastie. I'm glad you had each other, and sorry that she's gone.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. It was a good run.

[lyr]

It sounds like she had a good, happy life with you for many years. I'm sorry that you lost her.

[darkemeralds]

She did. As usual with animal companions, she brought me so much more than I gave her.

[sporky_rat]

I remember her. I am glad you had each other.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you for remembering.

[cookiemom6067]

I'm so sorry, Em.

[darkemeralds]

Thanks. I miss her.

But other wandering cats in the neighborhood seem to sense her absence and have been coming around.

[ranunculus]

What a lovely rememberance of a friend. She really was a beautiful cat. I'm so sorry about the cat sized hole in your life.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. That's a good way of putting it. In my experience, that hole closes gradually, or else another cat comes to fill it.

[ranunculus]

I'm dreading the day Tazlina is no longer with us. She's living on borrowed time, carefully balanced on medications and doing well, but she is an old dog with problems.

[darkemeralds]

Hugs to you. It's just hard when we finally have to let them go.

[twistedchick]

You gave her a good like, and she appreciated it in her own way. I am sorry for your sake that she is gone.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. We were pretty well matched in our general detachment. She was a gift.

[dine]

I'm sorry your companion of so many years is gone. I'm glad she had you - and you had her - for as long as you did. I know she'll be missed sorely

[darkemeralds]

She will. Thank you. How are you? I need to go catch up on your journal.

[dine]

I'm fighting some worsening health issues, but mostly moving forward. still working for ACME (a real challenge in the age of covid) and trying to entertain myself while mostly hermitting away from the world.

my journal continues to feature random daily life crap, links to interesting stuff and the occasional fic rec or picture. mostly nothing earthshatteringly important, but sometimes interesting

[oursin]

I'm sorry for your loss.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you.

[ruric]

She's beautiful and obviously had a happy and good run in her time with you. I'm sorry for your loss.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. We had a good life together.

[forestofglory]

She was beautiful! May her memory be a blessing

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. It is. I expect it will always be. I'm so grateful for easy capture and saving of photographs. Earlier beloved cats in my life were less well-documented. Their memories are still a blessing, but it's wonderful to have so many pictures of Graydie over the smartphone years.

[cathexys]

I'm so glad that she had you! And I'm so sorry!!!

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. I'm glad that I had her.

[panisdead]

What a beautiful cat. I'm glad she had you.

[darkemeralds]

She was a beauty. I'm glad that she chose me.

[tabaqui]

*hugs*
I'm so, so very sorry.
Of course she was happy. You were her companion for all those years, and gave her exactly what she needed.
I'm so glad she had you to be with in her last days.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. We had a nice life together.

[rainkatt]

I'm so sorry; she was beautiful, and it seems she was quite content with you and you with her. It's so hard when they go.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you. It's been several weeks, and my sorrow is lifting, but I still catch myself checking to see if Graydie's out on the porch or wanting something to eat.

It is</em? hard and so sad that they love us unconditionally (well, for values of "love" that include cats' ordinary aloofness!) but don't live nearly as long as we do.

[starfishchick]

On here for the first time in literal years, so so sorry to hear about Graydie.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you.

Nice to see you back. I've been drawn back by a desire to break away from Twitter and doomscrolling. It's so much nicer here!