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Memorializing someone who didn't remember much.

As if yesterday’s headline news wasn’t enough emotional gut punch for us, Janice and I also said goodbye to Daisy, one of our four cats, at 17. She’d been on a diet to prop up her weak kidneys, which probably bought her five of her years, but even medical science can only do so much.

Not that Daisy understood modern medicine. She didn’t understand—things. In general. She was 80% floof, 20% cat, and 0.01% was devoted to two functioning brain cells—just enough to make her a ruthless hunter, when an insect happened to wander into our domicile. Otherwise? Not the brightest bulb, not the brightest crayon in the box—but you don’t need brains to be lovable. She knew that whatever she found confusing (i.e., everything), we’d take care of it. Here she is, accurately labeled.

Janice’s sister Kate heard the kitten Daisy meowing in the rain and took her in. After Kate went through some life changes, Daisy and her stepsister Onyx joined the household of my father-in-law, Michael.

Michael passed a few months after Janice and I were married—in the first couple of weeks of 2017—so when we went up to his house to collect personal effects and see to his remains, Daisy and Onyx were waiting for us.

To be blunt, Michael’s house was not a pretty sight. Hoarding issues, piles of stuff everywhere. While Janice and her uncle went downstairs to pry Onyx out from behind the dryer, I stood in Michael’s room, gathering my thoughts. I’d not known him long, but it had meant a lot to me that I’d won his trust…and gotten his insight on how to look after his little girl.

As I was sorting through my feelings, I noticed something under one of the piles move. With slow and cautious steps, Daisy emerged, walking to my feet as I bent down and picked her up. She was in my arms when Janice returned, murmuring, “I married a cat whisperer.” I think it’s just as likely that I had certain Michael-like qualities that drew Daisy out, but regardless, she and Onyx were comfortable with us from that day forward.

Onyx left us four years back. Daisy’s departure means losing our last living link to Michael—other than Kate, of course, but we don’t see Kate every day.

Still, we’re doing okay. Handling the practical business of Daisy’s end, a series of tasks we can do something about, helped distract us from larger national matters, about which we can only do so much at present. We got to say our goodbyes, and figured out her memorial items—one of which has the epitaph “Huh?” and the other of which has the epitaph “?.” Both sum her personality up, I think. So we’re finding things to enjoy, reasons to laugh.

Times ahead will be hard, but they’ll be harder for others than for us. We’ll need to be ready for that, and finding joy builds resilience.

Our house has three cats still in it—Fiona, Natasha, and Thor—and of all the cats we’ve ever had, Natasha is the only one we sought out. A sort of directed happenstance has put the rest of them in our house, as it did Daisy and Onyx. Janice calls it the cat distribution system, and it may hold some surprises for us yet.

Between the distractions of recent events and the busywork of my new job, I’ve been a bit behind on Journal-related work, but I have a plan to get caught up on that on Monday. Contributors, look forward to that!

Tomorrow: Anxious times! Let’s be thankful for phobias we don’t have…