In 2024 I am 15 years a widow. I have remarried. I have written a book about my grief. But even still, even after all these years, it’s so interesting to me the things that bring the past back to me. Way back in 2005, just after I had moved into the first apartment I would share with Jordan, we stopped at a shady pet store in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. We had been talking about getting a kitten or a cat. I really wanted a kitten. We had gone to a couple shelters in the city looking for the perfect feline to be our very first fur baby. But I didn’t feel any of the cats we saw there were young enough.
We were driving through Ballard one day after doing I don’t know what and saw a sign advertising kittens for sale. I can’t remember what our expectations were, but it was the sort of pet store out of a nightmare. There was a large group of puppies in the back, that I’m almost certain were from a puppy mill and two separate groups of kittens. They were tiny little things; one group was all black probably about five or six of them if my memory serves (and it doesn’t always) and a small group of three tortie kittens. The torties were all siblings, one female and two males. I remember how badly I wanted all three of them and Jordan looking at me like I was an insane person. I had such a hard time choosing. Part of why I wanted all three is that they were all snuggled up together when we arrived and they were being kept in a bird cage. I thought that was mean and I wanted to rescue all of them. I wondered how long they had been here, with only each other for comfort and it seemed cruel to separate them. No matter how much I pitched it, Jordan kept rejecting the three kitten idea.
So, I took my time with them, petting them and cuddling them. The female was the only one who came out of the cage willingly and curled up in my lap. I took that as a sign. She was meant to be ours. I’ll say it again though, I wish we could have taken her brothers too. We paid $99 and took her home with all the necessary supplies. We called her Violet and found out quickly that the mellow cuddler we thought we had gotten was mostly a clever facade. We poured our love onto her anyway, loving her as deeply as her claw scratched.
Violet died this past weekend on January 13. I knew how devastating it would be for the kid. Violet had become very much his cat over these last years. Her territory was his room, his gaming room, wherever he was Violet wanted to be. She would have been 19 years old in February. Kidney disease is very common in elderly cats and Vi was no exception. It started in on her and was clearly only getting worse. What’s more is she had some kind of digestion issue. Cleaning up her messes once or twice a week had become pretty standard for me. I knew I didn’t want her to suffer for years, just because it was going to be so hard to let her go.
Like I said, I knew it would be devastating for the kid. I was not prepared for how hard it would be for me. It may sound silly, but Violet felt like one of the last links to Jordan. We got her together, loved her together, and when Jordan died, Violet absolutely noticed the change. I felt she understood what had happened and grieved in her own cat like way. I’m not saying she totally got it in the way another person would, but I believe she knew something had fundamentally and irreparably changed.
The night before she died, I was looking at old photos and videos of her. I wanted to create a little memorial to her on my Instagram account, so I went far back looking for pictures of her as a kitten, when she had fit in the palm of my hand. I discovered so many memories that had been tucked away for so long. It’s funny because it doesn’t feel like that long ago, but I guess it was. Watching those videos, seeing the photos was wonderful and gut wrenching at the same time.
I don’t know if I believe in heaven in the most traditional sense. But I like to think that Violet has been reunited with Jordan and they are play fighting again. I like to think Violet found her brothers and they’re all curled up together again, but this time there’s no birdcage to keep them contained. They’re all free.
One Widow's Journey 