(Dearest Felicity, I am going to be talking, in part, about your wonderful cat Nero’s untimely death in this blog entry. I will completely underdstand if you choose to skip this entry. I do not wish to make your grief any worse. It’s just that his passing has stirred up a lot of old memories and dormant emotions about the cats I was lucky enough to have in my own life and what it was like when they died, and I need to write about them in order to work through them.)

My dear friend Felicity suffered a loss in the family recently. Her cat Nero, only seven years old, died after a long and painful illness. For a while, vetrinary medicine kept him going, but by the end he was in severe pain and had to be put to sleep.

She is grieving terribly for her lost feline friend. It is bad enough that we outlive our pets many times over. But to have one die so young after watching him waste away in pain is just too cruel, especially when no certain cause is found for the illness.

It is cruel, it is unfair, it is senseless, and it is horrifying in its arbitrary and random brutality.

I have been where she is far too many times. I grew up in a house full of cats, all with their own wonderful personalities, and all very much loved. I might not have had a lot of friends growing up, but I had cats, and there was many a day when I watched television accompanies by three or four of the locals, whom I would pet and fuss over and play with during the commercials. Often one (or more!) Of them would be curled up on my lap, purring away as I stroked it, the two of us the very picture of cozy contentment.

There were so many over the years. There was Minou, and her daughter Duchess. Then Blosssom adopted us by having a litter of kittens on our back porch in the dead of winter. She begat (becat?) Ace (named by my sister after Ace Frehley of KISS), Noodle, and Billy. Ace later begat Trigger, Headline (for her black and white fur), and Coug, named after the mascot for Cougar brand shoes.

I am sure I must be missing a few, but that is most of them.

That is nine cats, all coexisting in a three bedroom home along with two adults and four kids. I was delighted, of course, being a cat loving kid.

But looking back on it, it does all seem a tad whacky.

I like to tell people I grew up in a cat house.

Nine cats, of course, means nine deaths. We were quite lucky that, despite them all being indoor/outdoor cats, most of them lived to the ripe old age of twelve, and some even more than that.

But their deaths still hurt, and I still miss them all, as well as the other critters I have known as an adult. I regret that my instinct to reassure my parents that I was OK made me just nod and say “Okay!” When my mother would tell me a cat was gone. It must have seemed to her like I didn’t even care.

I did care, I cared a lot in fact. But I did not know how to grieve back then, let alone express negative emotions. So all my suffering was silent, internal, and inconclusive.

I treasure all the memories I have of all those wonderful little souls. To mean, animals are people, it is as simple as that. Sure, they are not as smart as me and you, but neither are children. And that is how I see pets : eternal children, and us their lucky, lucky parents and caretakers.

So when I say that Felicity suffered a death in the family recently, I mean exactly that. I am not being facetious, sarcastic, or glib. Pets are members of the family, full stop. They are fuzzy little people to me.

I have gone many years now with no animals in my life, and I really miss them. If I ever start making a living as a writer, I plan to get my own apartment in a pet friendly building, and two cats.

Pets give us so much in the time they are with us. They give us love, companionship, affection, entertainment, and even a little bit of chaos to keep our lives from being too routine and predictable.

And they ask for so little in return. Just food, shelter…and love.

Rest in peace, dear Nero. At least you are beyond all suffering now.