This is Momo, my first cat. I adopted her a few weeks after our wedding in 2022. She was smart and cuddly. She liked to bring her little cotton mouse to us to play fetch. When I got home from work she was the first one to ran in front of the door to greet me. Even though she was a cat, I felt like I adopted a puppy.

Fast forward to 6 months later, she was coming of age and needed to be spayed. I took her to the vet in my neighborhood, ran all of the test, paid for the highest option. I say yes to everything the doctor said just to make her experience the least pain as possible. The vet said the operation was successful and she will need to stay the night.

I did not expect that the last time I saw Momo was the time I handed her to that fucking doctor. I got a call at midnight from the vet that Momo is unwell and dying. My wife and I ran as fast as we could to the vet, by the time we get there Momo was unconscious her heartbeat was really low. We tried to talked to her, her heartbeat raised up for a few minutes then flatlined. Momo died in my arm that day.

It took a week for me to able to get up and go to work again. I adopted 2 more cats. One is abandoned, one is a stray but got stuck in a cement crack. They are living happily with us now but none them is as smart and gentle as Momo. I hope she is in a better place now.

For some reason I cannot upload her picture. Here is the folder of all her photos

So many stories. This turned into such an essay. Maybe no one will read this but there’s some catharsis in writing it.

Buddy was my best friend. He found my wife when he was a kitten, probably around seven months old. He followed her to her car on a rainy day a few days before Thanksgiving. His name was “Widow” for probably two or three weeks, my wife told me he was a girl and I just never questioned that. We were watching Elf at the time she discovered her mistake, so that’s where his new name came from.

We talked it over and we thought adding another cat would be a bit much with what our financial situation was (stupid rent increases for adding pets), so I took him to the closest animal shelter. They asked where we found him, I answered honestly and they said nope, we only accept cats found in our town, there’s a fee otherwise. I didn’t know I was supposed to lie about that, my bad.

Our town didn’t have a shelter, but we were told to take him to animal control and he’d be moved to the shelter associated with our city. So I took him there, explained the situation. The first thing I was asked was “Did you feed her”? Yeah, it’s a kitten that was stuck out in the rain in the evening, of course we did. She explained to me (this still makes no sense to me, if anyone has an explanation please chime in) that by default if you feed a cat without an owner you legally become its owner, and that 49 states have reasonable laws to override that default but since Michigan has no laws about feeding strays on the books, I’m the owner. $100 surrender fee to give up a cat we own. Didn’t know I was supposed to lie about that either, my bad.

We gave him to my wife’s sister and her boyfriend and Widow spent that entire night shitting all over their furniture and my sister-in-law demanded we take him back. At this point he’s our cat.

He never pooped on our stuff, but we knew there was an issue. I swear I brought like ten stool samples to the vet over his first year and they all tested no parasites. He was kind of a dumbass and at one point he ate some bristles off our broom and threw them up with a yellow worm-thing coiled around one, I didn’t see it but my wife took a photo. I showed the vet and they gave him parasite meds which solved his issue for good. It’s not something you hear people saying too often, but thank god my cat ate that broom, who knows how long he would have stayed sick for. For the record, if that happens, the recommendation is to put the worm in a baggie filled with water to bring to the vet, as opposed to taking a photo for evidence before trying to get it as far away from you as humanly possible, which seemed like the sensible thing to do at the time.

Before getting him I always pictured cats as graceful animals, but he was so goddamn clumsy. Early on I was playing with him trying to get him to hop into a cardboard box that was not much taller than him. I threw a treat inside, and he looks over the edge of the box to see it and thinks it over. He hops into the box but hits his hind legs on the side of the box and faceplants. Oh my god dude. He jumps back out okay and I’m like let’s try this again. He does the exact same thing a second time, he hits his hind legs and faceplants.

Buddy’s thing was he would sleep like he had just been hit by a car. Our repeated joke was to look at him and say “RIP”. Some examples:

The plastic shelves he’s asleep on in that last photo were stacked above our dresser for extra storage. That was his most frequent sleeping place, it was to the right of my head, but way above. One time I was waking up from a nap and I’m like half-asleep and see him stretched out like a dead animal on the edge and I start thinking “this asshole’s gonna fall”. Then he started sliding off and when he woke up he tried to cling to the edge, but that just pulled the drawers and they fell with him. For an instant I was terrified that they were going crush him but I saw him sprinting out of the room before I really had time to process.

There was a period of time where he was very curious about the world outside the apartment and we would have to prevent him from running out the door. He eventually snuck out at one point when someone came home late and we didn’t pick up on it until morning. Right outside our door was mostly stairways, so I went down the stairs looking for him. I was calling for him walking the stairs and he wasn’t coming like he normally would, it was terrifying. When I got to the cement floor at the very bottom he walks out from the darkness under the stairs and starts screaming at me, face completely covered in cobwebs. He never left home again after that.

Buddy would flail his tail when he was happy, he was the dog I always wanted. He loved being the center of attention and loved hearing his name. He would be passed out dead and I would whisper his name very quietly and his tail would do a single flail.

One time I was getting ready for my day at grad school like any other and I realized I forgot to close my shirt drawer, thought it was odd because I’ve never done that before. Whatever. I come back about nine hours later and he is not at the apartment door to greet me like always, instead it’s my antisocial cat. When I walk into the bedroom she starts pacing around in front of the dresser and my heart sinks into my stomach when I make the connection. There’s something to be said for moments of terror out of concern for someone’s well-being that turn into pure comedy the instant you realize they’re fine, he does a huge stretch and hops out all happy, best sleep of his life. Black cat curled up on black shirts in a black dresser. Later that evening I catch him opening the same drawer with his paw. He had just taught himself a new trick without having the courtesy to notify me about it.

I had long covid and was not doing great, but the pandemic was the really the best time of Buddy’s life. He was so happy that we spent most of our time at home. Our other cat hated it though.

The night before our second wedding anniversary, we were talking about how it was sad we couldn’t take off work to spend the day with each other. The next morning my wife is awake before me and Buddy is in pain in the litterbox, trouble peeing. Drive him to an animal hospital and we have to put him down. It was completely out of the blue. He always liked to be cradled like a baby and he died in my arms that way. We both took the day off to mourn.

RIP Buddy Monster

My cat showed up at our back door as a kitten and my sister was able to catch her and get her spayed. We kept her in the basement for a while away from the other cats, but I would spend time playing with her and sleep on a futon to keep her company (or maybe that was for my sister’s dog while she was at college, but I think it was for both of them). Anyway, she was generally pretty shy around most people, but she was my best buddy. She spent well over 90% of her time in my bedroom.

She liked to cuddle with me, but usually only for a few minutes at a time.

We had to put her down less than a year ago. That morning was the first time I actually cried in over 25 years.

I have had two. They have both been cats that people say “uh, are you sure they’re a cat” and they cannot get enough of play time. Here’s the current one

adopted my 6yr baby :)
I’m the only person she really likes.
Honestly without her idk if I would be here 😅

I’m not sure I have just one.

First there was Snowball. Adopted him as an adult from a rescue, and apparently he’d been returned a few times. Food allergies, likely irritable bowel syndrome. Over the next 12 years I cleaned up a lot of cat vomit. Seriously - we have three cats now and it’s still far less than he produced. Eventually cancer got him.

But he was my best bud for those years. When my girlfriend (now wife) moved in, she knew we came as a package. One time she said, “I don’t think your cat likes me.” And I was like, “Are you serious? He loves you!” She just didn’t get cat language.

Late in Snowball’s life (we didn’t realize how ill he was at the time), we adopted a female tabby we named Minnie. She was so cuddly. She’d come up to me at night, and I would lift up the covers, and she’d curl up under the covers with me for a while. She was spicy, as one vet tech put it. But she was so fun too.

She had multiple medical issues that tended to interfere with each other, and she spent quite a bit of time in the animal hospital in her later years. We put her to sleep when she was 7 because she just wasn’t getting better, and even if she had survived that incident, there was no guarantee she wouldn’t be back in a few months with the same problems. I miss her so much. At least Snowball got a long life, he was at least 13 but could have been as much as 18.

These days two of the three are pretty cuddly with me. Stitch tends to curl up on my feet at night, though my wife has spotted him in my arms while we sleep too. Nibbler usually curls up on my lap and arm when I’m in the comfy chair in the living room. I’ll miss them both so much someday.

And lately Stitch has been showing signs of old age, he has a few medical issues of his own, and his black tuxedo fur is fading some, so I fear he’s older than we thought. (We’ve had him since 2016, and they thought he was about a year old then, but they really can’t tell - he could be 5 or 6 years older than that.) I’m not ready…

My most favoritest boy in the world is my orange named Lamp. Lamp is a friendly, playful, silly, loud, cuddly, sharp, malevolent, pesty, barfy boy I couldn’t imagine living without. We got him from the used pet shop (Humane Society). We went not knowing what we were looking for. He had a special needs tag on his cage as he was brought in from a hoarder (which is how he got named Lamp) and then adopted and returned 2 weeks later because he didn’t get along with the children in his new home. But he immediately threw his whole body against the cage door for us to pet him and we knew he was coming home with us. Lamp has 26 toes and his favorite toy is a deer hide bee.

Mine is Oliver. He was fostered as a 2 week old kitten by my brother-in-law. After his divorce Oliver came to live with us, he’s been with us for almost two years now. I have had other pets but I’ve never felt this close to another creature.

He loves to be near me and comes running when I call for him. Every night when I get ready to go upstairs to bed, he waits at the stairs for me, then runs up as fast as he can, then turns around to make sure I’m still following. He runs down the hall to jump up on my bed and wait in my spot, then kneads and snuggles and purrs and it just fills my heart with such joy. He’s afraid of most people, but he loves me unconditionally.

I joke that we’re both have an anxious attachment style because we were taken from our mothers too early, but I really do think that we understand each other and the need to feel safe.

Maybe this is dramatic but I truly don’t know how I could live without him.

Milo / Mimo has a deep and peaceful soul that has been with my family for nearly eight years now. He is always the most serene presence in the house, and he always shows deep affection toward me, my wife, and my little girl. One of his preferred methods is to rest his forehead against mine with his eyes closed, purring for extended periods of time.

My little buddy is mine. I won’t share his name because it’s rather unique, I mostly call him little buddy or gremlin.

He’s a black shorthair cat. We got him as a rescue kitten and I loved him as soon as I saw this uglygoofy kitten run across his cage (over another cat) to get pets.

The first two weeks we had him all he did was have diarrhea in the closet and scream, he was very underweight and looked like a bat. Once he got up to weight he’s been healthy and active since.

He’s got a lot of personality and quirks. He follows me everywhere, he’s a total copilot cat. He’s very loud, he likes to sing the songs of his people. He loves playing and we have all sorts of dumb games (I play Air bud style soccer with him and he’s pretty good, and he really likes being chased into his cat tube or under the bed).

He’s also an anxious cat, which I think resonates with me because I’m rather anxious. But he seems to know when I am and just lays with me and it’s very nice.

He’s a very dumb cat, but weirdly easy to train. He responds to his name and a few commands or words, but he also gets lost easily and cries if he can’t find us in the house.

He sleeps with me every night and doesn’t like when I don’t share bathroom time with him.

I have two 15 year old sisters and they are both magical.

One is a sassy, clever girl who craves more human interaction than she will admit. She begs for anything I’m eating like a dog, and has an insatiable curiosity. She is very loving once she knows you, but is extremely wary of strangers.

Her sister is dumb as a box of rocks and the sweetest cat I’ve ever known. She will only eat cat food or canned tuna. No interest in chicken, beef, dairy, nothing. She adopted my nose as a kitten and still has a fascination with excessively licking it, 15 years later. She is curious only about her next boring ass meal or my current lap location. She is instant friends with any human that walks through the door.

They both came from the same litter. 😂

I’ve had a lot of cats and loved them all but these two are special.

Mine shared her life with me for eighteen and half years from my childhood well into adulthood. She was a beautiful tortoiseshell with smaller patches of colour than the typical tortie or calico (one of her kittens was a typical calico, though).

She was the matriach of our pets, but wasn’t bossy or aloof - she simply didn’t tolerate the dogs or the other cats annoying her, but was quite happy to sit at the door with them. She wasn’t really a lap cat like my current one is (who happily curls up my lap as soon as I sit down 90% of the time), but she did enjoy company (she preferred to walk around you whilst you petted her) and would go on walks with you.

In her later life I no longer lived with my parents due to needing to move away due to university and then my job, but could not bring my cat with me (plus after over a decade living there with my family, it was better for her to stay with my parents in a familiar place and have me visit regularly). She got to sleep on my bed as she got older regardless of whether I was there or not. Towards the end she lost her sight and some of her hearing, but still knew who I was.

She is why I know God answers prayers. About two weeks before she passed away, she was outside whilst a family member was doing chores and disappeared. My parents searched for her for the next two days but could not find her. I could not get home until the weekend, but searched for her as soon as I could. The Sunday morning (I was due to leave again that afternoon) I tried one final search and begged God to bring her back to me. On my walk back from the very last place I could think of to look, I saw her in the distance and ran to pick her up. She was alive, just lost - she was less than 100m from home. I can still remember how shocked my family was when I brought her to the door in my arms. A week or so later I got a call from my parents that she was starting to wander around in circles and that the vet recommended she be put to sleep (as an interim measure the vet gave her a mild sedative and pain relief to ensure she wasn’t suffering). It was too late in the day when I got the call to take her back to the vet, so I asked God to spare me from the decision. That night she passed away peacefully in her sleep.

It was hard losing her (even now, many years later I still feel the pain of her loss). For the first few months that followed I dreamt about her several times (never in a distressing way; it was like my mind was trying to keep her alive). Over the next 6 months or so I thought I saw her out of the corner of my eye whenever I visited my parents. I knew I couldn’t get another cat at the time since (1) I was unable to keep one myself and (2) I wanted my cat back and it wouldn’t have been fair to a new one.

It was years before I was in the position to get another cat and even then it wasn’t ideal (my wife and I were renting at the time and the landlord wasn’t keen on pets; since he was otherwise the ideal landlord I was reluctant to introduce any source of conflict), but that’s when our current two arrived. A neighbour who had been feeding a batch of stray cats (I think to entertain their grandchildren) fled the city during the COVID lockdowns and we suddenly had an influx of cats in our tiny backyard. I readily gained the trust of most of them and we took them to the RSPCA to be rehomed (all successfully were).

We ended up keeping two of them - Whisper (a young male mackerel tabby about 8-9 months old at the time and such an incredibly friendly, social and intelligent cat) and Tabitha (then a 2-3 year old female brown torbie; she is almost certainly Whisper’s mother and I am pretty sure I know who the father is, although unfortunately I was never able to catch him). For Tabitha, it took two months to gain her trust (we decided we had to keep her as she would struggle to adjust to a new home and new people; the RSPCA even flagged her as having behavioural issues, although we’re pretty sure that’s because they washed her chin and she didn’t trust them after that). When we brought her home from the RSPCA, she wouldn’t come out of the carrier into the cat enclosure we had built for her and Whisper until I sat out there with her and spoke to her - it seems that the sound of my voice was enough to convince it was safe. She had a lot of separation anxiety early on and used Whisper as a “threat meter” for the first 6-12 months. Nowdays we have our own property and both Tabitha and Whisper clearly feel safe with us; Tabitha regularly climbs on to my lap for cuddles (and often then rolls over for belly rubs). Tabitha and Whisper are very different cats to my previous one, but very precious. Whisper is a gem who succeeded in winning over not only my wife (who had very little experience with cats previously and is a dog person) but my in-laws too!

I posted this a few weeks ago but I’ll do it again here. This is my blog post about my soul cat, Max.