In the winter of 2008, my family got a cat, who was supposed to be my dad’s, but it didn’t happen that way. This cat decided that I was their person and that they didn’t really care about anyone else. This cat’s name was Muddy Puddles, a long-haired seal point Siamese, and he was my best friend. In 2009 we moved again and of course, he came with us; he wasn’t even a year old by this point and he was so small. There are only a few pictures of him at that point that exist. It’s very interesting how different they can look over time. In 2014, we moved again to Alaska, and I was just starting high school. Muddy and our other cats had flown to our new house before I got the chance to move in, so when I arrived at home, Muddy was already there waiting for me. He was always waiting for me to come home.
I think it’s very funny that he was so attached to me because he would follow me around the house. If I moved to a different room, chances were that you would hear his little feet behind me. I would even carry him on my hip like a child. I think when you grow up with a pet, it’s special, and saying goodbye really hurts. Starting around September of 2020, Muddy started having health problems. He was throwing up a lot and he seemed very tired so we took him to the vet. The vet gave us some medicine and told us to keep watching him and it seemed like he was getting a little better, albeit he didn’t like taking the medicine. But my parents noticed things that I think I was very blind to, it’s always the good days you hold onto and the ones that you pay attention to that makes you think they’re getting better. By November, Muddy lost a lot of weight and we could not get him to eat anything, so we took him back to the vet, and he didn’t get to come back home.
Cancer they told us, I guess it catches you by surprise. The first night wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. It was the days that followed that were the hardest. The first night I discovered that I could not sleep in my room because I kept expecting him to be in my desk chair, where he would always lay when we would go to bed. I couldn’t deal with the fact that he was not there, where he should have been. So, I started sleeping on the couch in the living room but even that didn’t help too much because we had our Christmas tree out and he always laid under it, so I expected him to be there too. It was a very long week. A stuffed animal I got for Christmas from a close friend became a major comfort object for me, I carried it around everywhere, and by Friday night I was sleeping in my room again – because I felt like I needed to. I think a few days later I removed all of the cat food and the toys from my room, except I don’t think you expect just how used to those things you are. Even without the food bowls in my room, I would still find myself walking around where they originally were, and I think that only amplified the fact that he wasn’t there.
Within the month, we got his ashes back from the vet.I felt a little better because he was back home where he was supposed to be, like a little bit of the puzzle was filled back in, except it wasn’t complete and it would never be complete. But I kept that box and the paw print mold they gave us, all of his papers, his old collar – I kept it all on a shelf in my room and I’ll be the first to admit, seeing the box all the time really hurt but I think it would have hurt more if it wasn’t there.
My father told me months later that I became very closed off, like I was imploding into myself and that I was just kind of there in a way. I guess you could say that it’s going through the motions of life without being present, and I think that’s exactly what it was. By the end of December, it had been a whole month and I was not okay. A major part of my life was gone and I didn’t really know how to deal with it. He was about 12 years old, we got him at about 6 months old we think, and so I essentially grew up with him. I have very few memories of my childhood before he was there, so to me, he was always there, one thing I could always count on to be in my life until I couldn’t.
At this point, my best friend was the biggest person that I had, because in January, she was going through the same thing, but it seemed to me like she was dealing with it better than I was, and I just didn’t understand it. Within three months she got another cat, and I was angry because I never understood the idea of getting another pet after you lost one that was so prominent in your life, but I understand it now. I think it’s something that you unfortunately must go through to completely understand it. She and I have talked about it since I lost Muddy. Between things that both her and my dad said to me, I came to understand that it’s no replacement when you get another pet because nothing can replace that. You’re just making more room in your heart for another creature. Something that I think is worth mentioning about getting another pet is that while you’re making room for them, that ache of loss from the previous is still there. Even now there are some days that I can’t stop thinking about him, that I’ll see him in different situations, or I’ll still feel his tail caressing my leg, and that’s just a reality of loss.
However, by February I realized I was lonely. I had always been a cat person and I was so used to having my own cat that the absence of one was startling. So I started putting in a little effort to find different cat breeds, and don’t get me wrong I am all for adopting cats from shelters, but this time I was looking for something very specific. Do you want to know something that is really silly to me? Why is it that Alaska has several Sphinx catteries? A hairless cat in arguably the coldest state in the US and there were several of them! But I was looking at Siamese catteries and going through cat breed descriptions until my dad told me to look at a specific breed – the Norwegian Forest Cat. Let me tell you, I fell in love with this breed, they were originally on Viking ships,they’re very adventurous, their fur is water repellent, they actually like being in the water, and everything about them drew me in. I found a cattery in Colorado, and I sent them an email and within 24 hours I was on their waiting list. I started out being number 18 on the waiting list and so we waited, it’s all a big game of chance waiting for cats to be born because even just in this cattery, litter numbers spanned between 2 and 7 at least, so you just kind of wait.
Litter E, I got my chance, and I was able to choose between two kittens – Tronder and Syvert. The thing with this cat breed is that there are so many variations for their coats, Tronder is what they call a Black Smoke and Syvert was almost pure black, but some of their siblings were orange! I decided to choose Tronder. There was something about him that really drew me in, I would blame it on the little eyebrows that he has but I couldn’t really tell you just exactly what made me love him, because to this day I don’t know.
He came home at the very end of August, my dad picked him up in Colorado on his way to Maine to help me move into my new apartment, and Tronder came home the very first day of classes. And I am hopelessly in love with this tiny little demon knight, who likes to bite my arms and tries to play with the art I have on the walls, and he will not stop jumping into my clothes basket! But I think he’s exactly what I needed, and my dad thinks so too. I guess after we put down the deposit for a kitten in February, everything changed. He tells me that until almost like a switch was pressed, it seemed like I was present again, that I was lively like I used to be, and I believe him now.
Having Tronder in my home, it feels right, like this whole journey was supposed to reach this point. If you believe in fate to any degree, I think that’s what this is. It’s been almost a month now since he came home, and despite losing sleep from him waking me up at 3 am all the time, I couldn’t imagine not having him in my life. He is everything I could have wanted, and I can’t wait for him to grow up, to see what he becomes. Something my partner told me was that you can’t put off your choices to wait for perfection that’s not going to exist, because they are going to become what they are with you, and that’s the perfection that you should be looking for. They are perfect in the ways that they change with you, and in the ways that you change with them.
Nothing will ever replace Muddy in my life, but I am so glad that I chose to open my heart up to another cat because everything seems perfect now. And one day I’ll have to say goodbye to Tronder too, and I know that that day will be just as hard as the day I said goodbye to Muddy, but I know now that nothing will ever replace them because you’re not replacing them.
You can move forward while still holding onto the past, don’t let people tell you that that’s not okay. Love is flexible and it’s unexpected and life is going to throw you through the wringer a few times, but love is the strongest thing we have, don’t turn it away.