Orion was always with me… especially during the later years of his life, always where I was, he was. When I worked from home he was in my lap or near by as possible. When I watched tv, or was reading, he was in my lap, when I went to sleep he was next to my head as close as he could get. Purring. Almost constantly purring. (Bill used to joke that Orion was my symbiote).

But that’s how it feels now, like a part of me is gone, physically, emotionally. I feel such deep sadness, my friend is gone. I loved him so, and I want to write stories of how wonderful he was, but I guess I have to wait and let the sadness get down to a lower roar, because right now it is drowning everything else out…

I’m so glad I worked from home yesterday, because it was so normal, he was in my lap, head resting on my arm while I worked.

He’d been fading, and had started to become sort of incontinent… just not making it all the way to the litter box. But last night he lost control and went in the bed. I picked him up and put him on the floor, and he did something he’s never done in 16 years… he stayed there, laid down on his side, and laid his head down too. His breathing was very rapid as well, so we knew. And we took him to the vet hospital (24-hours). They were his regular vets there as well, so it was a comfort in that way…

He was gentle always, and loved humans, no matter who visited us, he wanted pets from them… Only exception was when he felt threatened like at the vet’s. Then he would get his Brooklyn feral up. A few months ago, even though he was already sick, it took 4 humans to hold all 6.5 lbs of him so the vet could get blood. Last night, when the vet brought him back after inserting the catheter, she said how good he was.. us: he didn’t fight you? doc: nope, he was easy. <sigh>

He purred for us last night, his really big purr, with coos included, he said goodbye and I feel fortunate in that because I know from my own experiences,  it is not always the way.

I was always his human, he was always my familiar. I experienced with him communication on a level I didn’t know existed until I met him.

And now silence, and a huge empty space within myself…

Back in August of 2006, Boots was diagnosed with CRF (chronic renal failure). From that time to this,  Boots fought the valiant fight until, as expected, the kidney disease finally won out. But he (and we) did win 3 extra years full of life and the pleasure of each others company.

Even though we knew this would happen eventually, it didn’t make it any easier for any of us. There is very definitely an emptiness in our home.  That feeling of a specific missing part of the whole. It has taken me a while to get used to not having to medicate  him every night. I kept thinking it was time to do his meds. I still have to remind myself sometimes.

There were many times that Boots seemed to be studying us, as much as we would study him. He seemed to enjoy watching us, but I don’t know for sure of course. I don’t want to anthropomorphize too much, but there were times I thought he was looking at us and thinking how strange human behavior is. I remember him watching me put on pantyhose, and I swear his expression said, “What the hell is she doing?”

He was fascinated by shadow and light. So when I went to my first (and last) cat show and saw the laser pointers for sale, I got one for him. He loved that red dot, man did he ever. He especially loved spinning around in circles until he was dizzy. And as soon as he recovered he wanted to spin around again. When the laser wasn’t being used, Boots would sit and stare at the usual spots where Bill would shine it, and look back and forth at Bill and these areas, with an expression of, “well, where’s the red dot, you gonna play with me or what?” Bill would happily oblige.

And he was a belly-boy. Boots absolutely loved to have his belly rubbed, and it was never a trap. He would purr up a storm.

Boots always loved to play with the water in the water bowl. As a kitten he would place his toys in the water bowl and bat them around. He did outgrow that, but he never stopped  moving the water dish around, and always moved it into the path of human foot traffic. Despite our best efforts we eventually would kick the bowl and spill water everywhere.

Since he’s gone, the water bowl stays where it’s been placed.

I am sitting here reading a book, a programming book I’ve had in my possession for some time, with a bookmark placed where I left off reading. At one point I just stopped reading it… and I wasn’t sure why until tonight.

I’ve got great reading comprehension, always have — but because this is a book on programming somehow it set off a math-trigger thing. Afraid I’d find out that I didn’t understand it, that I was too “stupid” to understand it, so I just stopped.

Now that I’ve started reading it again, I realize, I understand it! I am smart, I can comprehend, I can still learn. It was really hard to write “I am smart” just then really hard. It should not be so difficult.

Dad was the sort of person who kept everything inside. Also for his generation ‘talking’ about things didn’t have the status it has now, especially for men. He never spoke about the pain and guilt of being the only member of is immediate family to be alive, or if he did speak of it, it wasn’t to us kids. The pain leaked out of him anyway, as repressed emotions tend to do, expressed mostly as rage though his violent, erratic temper.

That’s not to say he was a bad person, on the contrary. He was extremely honest, very charitable, a hard worker, an excellent provider for us, had a sense of humor and was highly intelligent.

His emotional intelligence was where he needed education. He could fly off into a rage over the simplest most innocent things for no logical reason. I don’t really like to talk about the abuse, people get all weird and stupid about it usually. Unless someone’s been through a similar situation growing up, they can’t understand, and that’s probably a good thing, but either way judgment needs to be left behind.

As a child I was constantly terrified, afraid of making him angry (there were other reasons to be terrified — mother was extremely cruel but she had almost no redeeming qualities, but that’s not what this post is about). He had a way of pounding up the stairs that was most unnerving.

At the age of 16 he crossed a boundary I could not accept, he ran after me into my room and proceeded to beat me. But my room was the only safe place in the house, the only place, that until that moment, I’d never been beaten. It freaked me out, enraged me. I started hitting back, and that freaked him out. The look on his face was, well, complete shock. That day saved me, it saved my soul in many ways. He stopped, he left my room, he went down the stairs to the living room and I heard him say to her, “do you know what that kid did, she hit me!” and “I’m too old for this.” And that was it, he never hit me again. If I’d have known, I’d have done it a lot sooner.

Over the years I grew to understand him, at least partially. Most of my understanding came from watching him die of lung cancer, changed me that did.

Once a week we would take him from one hospital to another for his radiation treatment. I’m still not sure why that task befell us, I would think that he either should have been in the hospital that was capable of providing the treatments, or the hospitals should have arranged the transport between them. He was so weak at that point and it was strange pushing him in a wheelchair, the man who terrified me all my life. Yet there he was, helpless and dependent upon me (and her). He trusted me, despite all that he’d done before, he trusted me to take care of him when he was sick, and of course I did. My only complaint about it was why. *Why* were we taking him to this place at all for treatment, because it seemed to be more of a form of unnecessary torture for him, he would get soooo sick afterwards, and so much weaker. They knew, the doctors knew, that there was no hope for him to get better, so why they made him go through that, I’ve no idea.

The anatomy of families is so strange and hindsight lends some clarity…

Dad was really great when I felt sad, I mean nobody else in my family would even have noticed my sadness, but he did and in his own way took great steps to try and cheer me up whenever it happened. In the dichotomy of our relationship, I was also ‘daddy’s little girl’ being the youngest of 3. I cling to the happy memories, the times that he showed how much love he had for me. Those are the things that allowed me to see him as a person, troubled, but still human, humane.

My dad was always great at reading stories to us kids, and not just reading but enacting them — different characters had different voices, different inflections in his voice. He was grand at that, and there were some stories (and I know all kids do this) but there were some stories I made him read over and over and over again, just because I loved the sounds, the way he read them. I can still hear his voice when I think of it.

I’m not sure when dad became a citizen, but he was enrolled in school right away and had to learn English before they would allow him into his proper grade with kids his own age. He learned the language fast, and did exceptionally well in all subjects, but especially mathematics. He also had to work at his uncle’s restaurant, which he hated.

My dad was anxious to join the army as soon as possible once the US entered the war, his main goal to find his family. He was 17 or 18 years of age and he did become a Sargent, though I’m not sure when. He was among the first soldiers to open the camps, and I cannot imagine the pure horror of what he and the others saw.

One of the only things he had left of our family was a small little photo-wallet which he’d brought here with him as a child and now it’s all I’ve got left of part of my family. Pictures mean so much when that’s all you have. I never looked much like my mother’s side of the family, but I look at these pictures and know these are my kin. And my grandfather strikes such a dashing pose, I look at that face and feel I know him. because I see some part of my soul reflected back at me.

I wish my dad had lived long enough to be able to talk about this stuff, I know it would have helped us… but he died at 55, and I was young, not far enough along in my own growth to be able to just come right out and ask him about anything (still terrified of him, I was). Ah well…

When Bill went to CeBit in Germany a couple of years ago he took a side trip to Bochum. Some “side” trip — it was an entire day — almost 4 hours of driving each way — even though I told him not to go, that it was too far out of his way. He went for me, because he knew how much it would mean to me… I cannot… I cannot put into words… how much the pictures of Bochum mean to me. I just am so lucky to have such love in my life, truly lucky I am.