Parisian Phoenix Publishing

In late fall 2019, my neighbor discovered that a stray cat in the neighborhood had crawled under her porch and given birth to kittens. My daughter set out to trap them, and we fairly quickly brought home the runt. It was Christmas season and the Judi Dench version of Cats was in theaters. So, my daughter convinced me to let her keep the almost pure grey kitten and named him Mistophelees, nicknamed Misty for short.

The second kitten was caught and homed, and the neighborhood folks called that kitten Smoky, thinking Misty’s name was a comment on his coloring.

But the final kitten lasted well into January and was two months old by the time it was caught. No one had any intention of keeping this kitten, and I jokingly named it Fog to keep with the theme.

Fog had evaded the trap by sticking his paw through the bars and getting the food that way. As a young kitten!

We had two cats at the time, Opie and Oz, both eight years old and male. Opie quickly became a father figure to Fog, and Fog and Misty loved being reunited. And in the cat world, two kittens are easier than one, especially when introducing them to an existing cat dynamic.

The two kittens— the boys or the greybies as we called them— came of age in the middle of the Pandemic. We found a local cat rescue to help us get them neutered and that launched a three-year stint in cat rescue and fostering.

[Fun fact: I thought Fog was a girl for several weeks. I called him my princess, and even after I saw his penis I still called him my princess. He will always be my princess.]

Fog bonded to me, and he has been by my side for the last five years. Purring loudly, snuggling fiercely and chirping like he was part Chartreuse or Russian Blue.

Last Friday night, I hopped in the shower late and didn’t stop in my room to feed Nala the Goffin or plug in my phone. I planned to bathe, do the necessary chores and flop on my bed. But when I opened my bedroom door, Fog was not there. Fog usually tries to open the door to get to me when he hears my footsteps.

When I followed the foot of the bed to where the cats have food and water, I discovered Fog dead by the water bowl. Old man Opie, now 14, hopped onto the floor beside the corpse.

In March 2019, about seven or eight months before Fog was born, Opie lost one of his front legs to bone cancer in his kitty-cat elbow. And now, he was helping us bury Fog.

I didn’t expect to lose a five-year-old cat so suddenly, but I suppose life happens. And I’d rather lose him suddenly than see him suffer. He’ll never get sick again. I mention my cat in today’s newsletter because it’s a reminder of how much relationships can provide us— even if it’s with an animal— and how quickly things change.