Piper & Leo in Just another day in Paradise...

I miss my cats so fucking much right now.

I miss them.

Leo would curl around me, and he always would sit on my chest. His little front paws tucked in, and he’d stare at me with this look that told me he knew. He knew that was where I have been cut open again and again.

Except this time, it wasn’t a surgical steel scalpel doing the opening.

It was him.

Right through straight to my heart.

I never thought I could and would love a cat so much, but from the very moment I locked eyes with his and he extended his pawn and curled it around my finger at PetSmart..

I knew he was coming home with us.

With me…

Piper, God, that cat. She was such a terror. Such a pain. I cannot tell you how much she loved running around the room chirping. She was incessant that way. Desperate for attention, and true to her tortoise shell, she commanded it.

She was insatiable that way. I would literally, at night, get out of bed and sneak quietly into the third bedroom which we had transformed into the cat’s room.

No, wait, I transformed it into the third bedroom. There were Kentwood Spring Water boxes that hold six individual gallons of spring water we got from Sam’s Club that I carved and whittled and taped together to form a pretty crude representation of a cat tower. I hung string from corner to corner of the room. We had endless toys that I used to encourage her to play.

And, God, did Piper love to play.

That was when she was at her happiest.

Murdering something.

And she knew it was a toy. She’d bring it to me! And so for at least an hour every single night I would go into that bedroom and I would play with her. Leo, well, he mostly watched. He wasn’t keen on trying to get involved, because Piper was so dominant that way. Every once in a while he’d get in on the action.

And I’m sitting here at my computer screen sobbing.

I miss my cats.

God, I miss them.

I avoid that room.

Had to move my computer and desk from it into my bedroom. I just..

I just can’t go in there.

Everytime I open the door, it’s so cold and just desolate. How is there a place in my house like that?

How is there ANYTHING in my life like that?!

There’s a ledge perfect sized for a cat to sit on at each window in each bedroom.

Piper lived there.

She loved just sitting in the window on her ledge watching the world happening. Whenever the door would open or if it was ajar and she chose to be in there she’d be sitting there. The curtains are light enough that you could see her perfect shadowy little figure sitting so properly in the windowsill and she would peek her head out between the curtains.

So. Freaking. Adorable.

And I go in that room and it’s closing in on a year now and I still think she’ll be there.

I still expect Piper sitting on her ledge.

Instead all I have is loss.

All I have is these tears.

Leo won’t curl up on my belly ever again.

I won’t get to wear Piper out – okay, I’m a liar, that’s almost impossible – rather tire her out with her favorite toy ever again.

I won’t get to hold them.

Hug them.

Feed them.

Clean their box.

I just.. they’re gone.

They were born in New Orleans.

They lived in New Orleans.

They were adopted in New Orleans.

They do not belong in fucking Oklahoma.

They belong in New Orleans.

I miss my fucking cats.

I love you both.

So so much.

Last updated April 18, 2015