My cat Albedo died today. He made it to sixteen when he decided it was time to go. And I’m here to talk about the loss of a cat who I loved very dearly.
I’ve been on this earth for a while now, and that has always included pets. Cats, dogs, birds, fish, you name it, I probably had it at one point. All of them were rescues. I’ve taken animals into my home because they had nowhere else to go my whole life, and Albedo was one of those.
My partner, Alastor, and I rescued him from the wilds of the Jack in the Box parking lot. A friendly stray had a litter behind the dumpster, in the bushes. Everyone loved them. Regulars and employees were enamored. At that time Alastor and I were there often, as he got off late from work and we were friends with the workers. We’d linger after close and watch them play outside. There was another regular there that did his best to feed them. The Jack in the Box staff would hold back food that was returned so that kind regular could feed them, supplementing what he could with dry food.
One night as we were leaving he pulled us aside and talked us into taking one home. He explained that the odds of them surviving to adulthood, in a marsh filled with coyotes, raccoons, and foxes, was a death sentence. He understood we couldn’t save them all. But if we could take just one home, give one of them a chance at life, it would mean the world to him. Alastor and I at the time already had three pets, two dogs and one cat. We had just had the “no more pets” discussion. But this was different. If the kittens were in a shelter, they could get adopted. And at that point we didn’t know there were local feral rescues that could have helped. So we did what we thought was best. We took Albedo home.
Taming a feral kitten is sometimes weeks of agony, wondering if it’ll work. But it did, largely because that regular started the process for us. By feeding them and interacting with them the way he did, it did a lot to start the process for us. But I’m not here to write an instruction manual on how to train a feral kitten. Just know that it eventually worked.
When Albedo was given free reign of the house six weeks after he came home, he got to meet the cat I had at the time, Shion. And Shion was his instant best friend. They did everything together. Her loss was a hole in his heart that took a long time to heal, and I don’t think he ever got over that. For a year he sat in the window, waiting for her to come home. It was heartbreaking, watching him process the absence of his best friend. But eventually, we moved, and it was then he bounced back to his normal self.
There never was another Shion. There were other cats he liked, even loved, but no one was ever as uniquely special as she was to him. But he still found friends. When he was ten, we found ourselves living in a place where someone had abandoned an entire litter of kittens. Alastor and I really couldn’t afford another seven cats, having two already and fostering my sister’s cat, but we took in as many as we could. We did eventually find homes for most of the ones we managed to take in, keeping only two for ourselves. We named them Skye and Beerus. Right from the bat Albedo wasn’t a fan. He didn’t hate them, and he wasn’t aggressive, but he did decide he was the fun police. He’d steal their toys so they couldn’t play. He’d swat Skye down the hallway when she tried to play with him. Eventually, as they got older, he decided he liked them. He still didn’t like them playing, so we started calling him Sheriff Bedo. But we started finding them sleeping together, cuddled up. They might not have been Shion, but they were still his friends.
As Albedo got older, he lost his eyesight, but he didn’t lose his spark. By that time, he was much more relaxed, and just loved spending time with his humans and friends. He spent his whole life following Alastor around, sitting just behind him and to one side as Alastor did whatever he was doing. Losing his eyesight didn’t change that. Albedo would look up at him like he was the coolest thing Albedo had ever seen, even long after he was able to see us at all.
But time went on, and he got older still. His appetite had been waning, so I started buying different food to see if it was just boredom. The only thing I bought he ate was a bowl of crunchy food, something he hadn’t had in ages. I was elated that I got him to eat again. But it was when he refused a bite of cheeseburger that I knew. I started looking into charities to help me sort out why he wasn’t well, hoping it was just a treatable illness still. But when he stopped drinking, I knew it was time.
Albedo died today. He had sixteen years of life with us as his only family, and for a feral kitten born in the wilds of the Jack in the Box parking lot, he had one hell of a ride. Part of loving animals is the eventual goodbye. I don’t think there is really anything that prepares you for that. I’ve lost pets in a myriad of ways, but Albedo got to choose his time. And I did everything I could to make sure that he knew we loved him. There is a hole in my heart that nobody else will fill, but it’s okay. Because eventually the pain will fade, and the parts of me he took when he died will be filled with his memories instead. Memories of that feral kitten we took home; that learned we loved him and loved us in return. Of a cat we fought to keep, through good and bad and everything else life threw at us. No other cat will ever be Albedo. But I don’t expect them to be. Because, when the next one comes along, they will fill a different part of my heart, and take up a different part of my soul. And even when it’s their time to go they will do the same. The void left behind will be filled with a life filled with love, with favorite foods, with midnight cuddles. And eventually, the pain of their loss will fade too.
The hardest part of loving anyone or anything is the pain their absence leaves. But the pain fades. Sometimes it comes back bittersweet, with tears for a loss we wish we could have avoided. But the pain doesn’t last. Eventually, it goes away, leaving us with happy memories in their wake.
Sixteen years is a hell of a ride for a cat that statistically should have died. And it was both an honor and a privilege to have been able to take care of him. In an ideal world, he would have lived forever. The agony of his loss is something that feels like it will never fade. But I’m almost forty. I’ve been here before, and I’ll be here again. And I’m glad that I made the choice to rescue Albedo. Because there was never ever a cat like him.