The Hurricane Kitty

Cameron Sims

August-ish 2020 (found Saturday, Oct 10, 2020) - June 20, 2025

I said goodbye to my sweet boy yesterday, the most charming, delightful, Mr. Personality cat there ever was. His passing inspired me to write up my experience of finding him, and him finding me, something I’ve been meaning to write since that day. It’s long – I guess a function of my grief — and mostly written for myself therapeutically. But yall who also loved this kitty, or love animals in general, may appreciate.

•

I found Cam on October 10, 2020, while reporting on Hurricane Delta for Bloomberg in Cameron, Louisiana. I was supposed to be in Brasilia, but Covid times halted my transfer, so I unexpectedly ended up covering that hurricane season. With an international move on the immediate horizon, I definitely wasn’t looking for a cat – seriously.

On August 27, 2020, Hurricane Laura demolished southwest Louisiana, including Lake Charles, where I grew up, and the town of Cameron just south on the coast. Six weeks later, Hurricane Delta came through, another Category 4 storm – an awful back-to-back sequence for the area. The two storms would combine to be one of the most catastrophic weather events in Louisiana history — a state with many.

My marching orders from Bloomberg were to wait until the storm passed overnight, and then drive to wherever the damage was the worst as soon as – and if – it was safe. I knew the place that would be hardest hit would be Cameron. I left Houston around 4 a.m., did some TV spots from Lake Charles for Bloomberg, and then drove south.

The town of Cameron had had a mandatory evacuation, which was still under effect, so there was no one around except for a police checkpoint on the road in. All around the checkpoint, media were starting to set up for their TV spots, opening up tripods and talking on satellite phones. I recognized some of the usual suspects from the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, etc., and everyone was taking the same shot, with a wrecked beige building in the background.

I drove up to the checkpoint and, admittedly with a touch of Southern accent leaking through, told the officers I knew the town and was from the area. I think they were about to let the media through in any case, but either way, I got in first. I drove south, veering around maybe a dozen dead, bloated alligators, white bellies up facing the blue sky – the blue sky that surreally often follows a horrific storm. I drove toward town and parked in about two feet of water near its edge, the closest I could get, and popped the trunk to put on my new, leopard-print waders.

A few other media cars pulled up and parked where I was, but when they got out I could see from their bewildered expressions that they weren’t hurricane-ready, besides not having waders. I knew the terrain and knew the risk calculation of wading through toxic, shrapnel-filled, potentially electrified water. And since I had been there many times, I knew where there was asphalt and where, a step away, there was simply swamp to drop into. I took stock and calculated a path and headed out into the water. Partway out, I turned and saw four media cars now parked where I had, the reporters standing at the water’s edge watching me, like I was heading out onto a frontier they weren’t willing to.

In town, I was alone. Not a single person anywhere. My friend Tressie, a source I had met down there many hurricanes before, had asked me to check on her restaurant and truck when I went down, since residents still weren’t allowed in, so I was determined to do that for her – the slim offering I could provide. The place was unrecognizable, just scattered piles of debris where there were once homes, with only a few still standing, with giant holes in them like God had punched through the living room. I can still hear so clearly the sound of a beeping house alarm going off out of a pile of rubble, like some futile cry for help – besides the wind and occasional creaking, it was the only sound in that oppressive air of silence. (video) I passed the cemetery, where caskets had floated out of their mausoleum boxes and were now sitting on the ground submerged in water. Tressie’s restaurant wasn’t where it was supposed to be, which completely disoriented me. I found it beached in a bank parking lot about a block away.

I used my satellite phone to call back to the Houston bureau chief with a report. We could barely hear each other with the sat phone’s tenuous connection, so I just tried to get through keywords: demolished, rubble, catastrophic, nothing.

Tressie had told me where her truck was located, on a spot of high ground on the other side of town, so I went back to the car — the media guys had already left — and carefully drove back east along the coast. I found her truck parked in a field on a little hill and successfully dry — as a local, of course she was a pro at this. I kept driving east to see the home of another family I had met while reporting on hurricanes past. (This next part is a touch of digression, but I haven’t been able to write it anywhere else, so here it is).

*

Back in 2017, I’d written a story for the Guardian about folks in Cameron who doubted climate change despite getting knocked down by severe storms many times. I interviewed a man, Mr. Benny, who was the supplier of keychains and tchotchkes made of alligator teeth and claws to truck stops around the South, a helluva niche job. He lived in a beautiful, stately home looking out onto the Gulf, beneath a majestic oak that he treasured, because he had clung to its limbs as a young boy as his family was swept away in Hurricane Audrey in 1957. That storm killed almost 500 people in Cameron and scarred the town forever, and actually was the impetus for the establishment of the national hurricane warning system, as Audrey victims had been told by newscasters that there wasn’t anything to worry about and that they could “sleep well” the night the storm plowed through.

Mr. Benny told me about this as we toured his alligator operation, which consisted of a very large shed filled with blood-soaked wooden tables. He had “a Mexican” there working for him, who showed me, like a proud artisan, how he used a screwdriver to pop out the gator eyeballs and wedge in a marble in its place, so they could sell the heads. I almost heaved as he demonstrated, but the bucket I leaned over to heave into was filled with gator chunks, and somehow that counterintuitively drove me to pull it together.

Mr. Benny was so nice, even if I didn’t agree with much of what he said. After our interview, he insisted on giving me a gator skull (as a journalist, I’m only allowed to accept gifts of nominal value. I felt like bones would qualify). He wanted to give me a huge one, from a 10-footer. I politely demurred, but said I’d accept a small one. Sometimes you just don’t need a giant alligator skull. The petite one is hanging in my portrait gallery in my living room, and no one has ever commented on it, probably because it’s pretty damn creepy.

Flash forward to 2020 and Hurricane Delta, and I wanted to check on his house and workshop. I drove until I couldn’t see the road under the water — a risky way to drive in that place since you can drop off into the swamp on either side. I remember one time when I was little, my mom was driving us across Louisiana in a storm at night and the water was over the road. At a certain point she just stopped the car and cried, because she didn’t know where the road was anymore and was too scared to continue — it’s a terrifying feeling. With that in mind, I didn’t drive in too deep and got out and walked to his house, trespassing across his yard to where the shed should have been.

Unsurprisingly it was all gone, not even remnants of the structure left. The house was messed up too: walking across the yard I was stepping around kitchen glassware and necklaces. The live oak was still there, the strongest survivor of all on the Gulf Coast, which later inspired me to write a story about those trees for Smithsonian Mag.

As I stood where the shed should have been, I looked out on the Cajun prairie grasses and saw dots of white. I used my DSLR camera to zoom in to see what they were, and sure enough, they were Mr. Benny’s gator skulls. I found two heavy large ones at the edge of the prairie, stuffed with dried grass, half-buried in mud, and pulled them out. A part of me felt guilty, like a grave digger, but I knew for sure that Mr. Benny would have loved for me to have found them (he died in a car crash a few years earlier.) I got choked up walking back to my car with these heavy remnants, just thinking of all the tumult that Cameron and its people have been through.

As I put the skulls in the trunk, I noticed a truck pulling up behind me. I figured it was more media so ignored them – there’s kind of a professional blind eye that reporters turn to one another when we’re competing for the same story. “Shannon?” I heard, and driving the truck was a photographer out of New Orleans I have worked with many times and become friends with, shooting for the New York Times. “I thought you were a local in your stylish waders!” It was a nice moment of release for both of us from a stressful day. We hugged and she insisted on taking photos of me since the context was so hard to describe in words. They were cheesy and staged shots, and I was smiling, which I regret as it wasn’t appropriate, but it was a function of us laughing at finding each other there and just needing a psychological break.

By this point it was the afternoon, and she and most of the rest of the media had started to head home – the story was already passing for most outlets, as there’s limited appetite for sad swamp folk stories. My job was also technically done, but I didn’t feel ready to leave, so I drove back toward town to walk around some more.

I walked, stepping around debris, in a state of kind of shocked meditation, and then stopped and leaned against a boat. I saw something move, a little cat that was brown and camouflaged with the surroundings. I squatted down to beckon it over. It hesitated a little, rubbing against a tree, but eventually came towards me. I reached out my hand for it to sniff me; I think it did, and then darted back away. I don’t know if it was Cameron or not, but I suspect it was, given how friendly Cameron was to strangers. Either way, that cat would lead me to him.

Seeing that cat made me realize there were probably other animals in dire straits around the community. I went hunting for food, or anything, that I could give them to help them hold on until residents were able to come back in. Unbelievably, I found some.

A church in town had had its walls blown out by Hurricane Laura, I deduced, and it was covered with a plastic tarp, that now had torn loose and was flapping in the wind. I stepped inside to a scene I’ll never forget: tables and tables set up with piles of items like canned goods, diapers, water bottles, etc, most useless now. Written on a whiteboard in the corner of the room, that was somehow still upright in that random way that hurricanes leave some things fine while ruining everything else, was a message welcoming people to help themselves to the donations.

I rummaged around through the supplies and found an unlabeled red Rubbermaid tub. I don’t know why, but I opened it, and voila, pet food. I think it was dog food, but no matter. I pulled it out and started dropping handfuls of it around town. Whenever I dropped the food, cats and dogs would come running.

As I was leaned over spreading out the last pile of food near my car, completely focused on the task I had created, out of nowhere, a reporter on a mic with a cameraman trailing behind walked up.

“...And as you can see here, some locals are actually trying to help feed the animals out here,” he was saying, in an overly loud and dramatic voice. “Ma’am, can you tell us, did you ride out the storm here? Can you tell us what you’re doing?” I stood up, just totally stunned and offended by this guy cracking open this quiet, solo experience I had been having and chasing away the already-scared cats with his stupid, predatory voice. “Bro, I’m with Bloomberg,” I said, ruining his live shot. He was stunned and chastened, and, after staring at me for a moment trying to process what I said, and probably how I had such stylish waders, he scurried away.

I turned back to feeding the cats, now with a new mission in mind: somehow rescuing however many I could and bringing them to the closest shelter I could find. But how to rescue stray cats when all you’ve got are your hands? I had brought a pair of scissors with me in my go-pack for reporting, and so I decided to stab the lid of the now-empty rubbermaid container to create air holes and try to fit however many cats I could into the container. This was my best available plan, and admittedly was not a great one. But so I proceeded to psychotically stab this rubbermaid, until I felt like a creature could survive in it. I put it on the ground near where the cats were gathered in a circle around the food pile. I reached down to grab a cat, picking the smallest one, and managed to get it closed into the container, which I could hardly believe.

I put it in the back of my trunk, and, feeling overly confident, decided to try to just grab a couple more cats and toss them into the car as well. Why the hell not. I grabbed another and put it into the trunk, not realizing I had left the driver side door ajar, and it shot through the car and out of that door like lightning. I decided I was pressing my luck, and I should go ahead and head out with my rubbermaid cat, and then when I got to a shelter in Lake Charles to drop off the cat, ask them to go out to Cameron to help the other animals, or even let me borrow traps so I could, in case they still couldn’t get in.

So that was my plan as I started back out of town, again driving around the dead alligators and downed electric lines.

The cat was going nuts in the container in the back, who could blame him. I hadn’t gotten far when I heard a cracking sound and looked in the rearview mirror to see the creature burst its head out of the lid, looking like one of the raptors in Jurassic Park that ate Newman, and climb up over the backseat of the SUV. It started climbing towards me, so I pulled over, kind of scared I would be eaten or at least attacked by this agitated animal, far from medical help. It jumped onto the back of my seat, over my shoulder, and into my lap. I was scared, but I saw it was scared too, looking around, trying to understand what was going on. It looked pretty bad, very skinny and roughed up with infected eyes.

I pulled out some turkey I had stashed in a cooler and tried to feed it to it, but it wasn’t interested. I got out to check the trunk and saw it had demolished the lid of the Rubbermaid, which had been made brittle by the sun and heat. So I decided to forge ahead and just try to get the animal to safety. As I drove it climbed on and off of my lap, purring. Then, it climbed up onto my shoulder and nuzzled against my ear and neck. I could hardly believe it, and took a photo to document the strange, special moment. 

Once I got back into Lake Charles, I picked up an intermittent cell signal and searched for nearby animal shelters or vet clinics. I drove by three, each of which had lost their roof in either Laura or Delta and were far from functioning, before giving up. I was supposed to do Day 2 reporting as well, so that night I was supposed to stay at the only hotel open in town, the gaudy Fertitta casino hotel, where all the linemen and emergency workers were also staying. I called them and asked if I could bring in a pet, and they said no. I considered trying to sneak the cat in, but figured without a carrier or litterbox, and without any stores to get that stuff, the chance of me getting caught was pretty high, and I had to sleep somewhere.

I called my mom to ask her to help, and she asked our local friend Jim Serra to ask around if anyone could watch a cat for the night. Lake Charles hadn’t had a mandatory evacuation, just voluntary, so there were still some people around. Fortunately, one of Jim’s friends David was one of them, and I drove the kitty over to his house. He put out a bed, water and food for it on his back patio, and I went back to the hotel to sleep.

After I did my morning reporting and TV hits, I went to pick up the cat. I put him back in my car, and he quickly climbed up onto the dash and laid down. We drove back to Houston together, with him sometimes sleeping curled up on my side.

I planned to bring him to a shelter back in Houston, but, from my experience volunteering in animal shelters, I knew they either wouldn’t accept a sick cat, or would accept it but put him down. I decided if I’d gotten this far advocating for the little thing, the least I could do was help it get healthy before dropping it off. And it wasn’t a wild, feral cat, but very docile and friendly, especially under the stressful circumstances. So I brought him home to my Houston apartment, and the next day took him to a low-cost vet clinic.

The vet found he had intestinal worms, an upper respiratory infection, an infected eye, and was on the brink of starvation, which the vet said he could tell because the ears had quit making wax. He also estimated the age at 3 months, which means that the cat would have ridden out both Hurricane Laura and Delta, an incredible feat.

I knew that a stray cat had a good chance of testing positive for either FIV (a cat form of HIV) of feline leukemia, and I remembered from the shelter I volunteered at in high school that any cat that tested positive for feline leukemia was put down immediately – the disease was contagious in cats and too torturous to be worth keeping them alive. So I was prepared for that to happen on the spot at the vet clinic, but he tested negative for both. I was so happy for him, and we took a happy photo in the car before heading home. A cat-loving friend saw the photo and said the expression he is making is “Are you my mommy?”

I nursed him back to health, with my mom taking over those duties for the first few days when I drove back to Cameron. I’d decided to try to do my part in helping the community by driving back with as many traps and carriers as I could get in Houston, to save as many animals as I could. On the day I went back, I came home with a car full of cats – maybe 10 – and dropped them all off at a Houston animal shelter, encouraging the shelter to advertise them as “hurricane cats,” my feeble attempt to make them more marketable. Back home, the original cat was wrapping up his antibiotics, and the time was approaching for him to go to the shelter as well. I had done my job. Little did I know, my job was, happily, just beginning.

Years earlier, when I lived in the northeast of Brazil, I had a friend whose cat would jump into her hammock on its own to take naps. I thought this was so cool and had thought in my head that if I ever got a cat, I wanted to get one that would do that. And one day, during a break from my Covid home office work, I came out into the living room, where I had left the balcony door ajar, evidently for one of the few days you can do that in Houston. I called for the cat but didn’t see him anywhere and started to panic that he had escaped off the balcony. I was really stressing out – I had gotten this cat so far just to fumble with a stupid mistake at the last moment – when I paused to try to really scan the balcony.

And finally, I noticed two little ears poking up out of the hammock. I named him Cameron.

*

Out of that dramatic beginning, Cam brought such joy to my life, and smiles to everyone who met him. During a Covid Friendsgiving that I hosted, the party devolved into my guests simply standing in a circle around Cameron watching as he rolled around.

When I finally departed for Brazil, it was the first time I have traveled on a plane with an animal – damn. By the time I got on the plane, I was wiped out from the packing up and the emotions of moving, but I had luckily ended up with the whole middle row of 4 seats on the flight (not a lot of traveling happening at that time). I put Cam in his carrier under my seat and fell into a deep sleep. I was jarred awake by a flight attendant shaking my shoulder, like a psychopath. I pulled down my mask and glared at her. Her companion flight attendant was holding a cat: “Is this your cat?” she asked. “No!” I answered, at first not remembering that I had a cat, but then also remembering he was safely in his carrier under my seat. I pulled my mask back on in a bratty huff, but then figured, since it turned out that I did have a cat, that I should check on him since I was awake now. I looked down and the door flap to the carrier was open. The little genius had pulled both zippers down the sides.

“Wait!” I called to the flight attendant, who was now waking up yet another passenger who might have a cat — who knows how many she had woken up or how long he had been roaming the plane. “That is my cat! Sorry!” She looked at me like I was crazy. “This is your cat, are you sure?”, wondering what kind of a pet parent I was to not even know my own cat. “Yes, sorry, I was sleepy!” I said, and, with a kind of relief, they handed Cameron back over to me. He looked so, so happy, like he’d had an excellent adventure on that plane while mommy slept.

Two weeks later in Brasilia, bizarrely, I was at a beach club, which I had been invited to by a woman I met kayaking on the lake during my first week. She had encouraged me to come because she said another American would be there, and I was desperate for friends in this new place. Sure enough, I ended up meeting that American, and as we were talking along with a few other English-speaking Brazilians, she said she had arrived recently from the States, and had had a crazy experience on her flight — a flight attendant had woken her up in the middle of the flight to ask if she had lost her cat. “There was another flight attendant holding this cute cat with white mittens, and I said, ‘No, but if you can’t find the owner, I’ll keep it!’” I was dumbfounded by her story and couldn’t exactly process it at first, but it turns out that, yes, even in my sleep, Cam was out charming strangers and making new friends.

My time in Brasilia was a low point in my life (although I thankfully would come to meet fantastic, lifelong friends). I started in a hotel for a month – Cam and I were cooped up in a room, and I was suffering from claustrophobia-induced panic attacks and the gut sense that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that I shouldn’t have come to Brasilia at all. Covid vibes and no friends probably didn’t help. Cam felt claustrophobic too and would paw at the window and cry incessantly as I worked (still WFH days). Our only relief was me throwing toys down the hall for him to chase until other guests inevitably complained, or else taking him out on a leash by the pool, until, again, other guests inevitably complained. It was an awful time for us both.

I was desperate to get out of the hotel and not willing to spend much time apartment hunting, so I jumped at the first furnished place I saw, a 1-bedroom with a balcony, just so the two of us could have at least some fresh air.

We both felt a lot better in that apartment – it helped that it had a beautiful view of the lake and a sweet pool – and for a while we were settling in. But Cameron always had what our family vet in Houston called “barrier refusal syndrome”: if there was a door, he needed to get to the other side of it. (My mom thinks the vet slyly made this syndrome up just to appease me, which makes me laugh to think of). So Cam was doing a lot of desperate crying at the door, and soon I was again throwing the ball down the hall. Fortunately, Cam charmed the neighbors, and many of them would open their doors to watch when we played in the hall. The apartment across the hall was under renovation, and Cam enjoyed hanging out with the construction workers and monitoring their progress, which always made them smile.I found a wonderful petsitter in Brasilia, and during my occasional trips around Brazil, she would send me cute pics of Cam. But after her first visit, she also told me what I already suspected – that he could really benefit from a sibling. I wasn’t trying to go that deep into the cat lady  lifestyle, but I had to agree with her.

In Brazil, as in many other places, there is a strong prejudice against black cats, and so I figured I would adopt a black cat to try to help out. I reached out to a shelter that said they had just turned away a woman with four black kittens because they were at capacity. They gave me her number – she lived in a favela outside of Brasilia – and I picked out a little girl the woman described as “the leader” of the bunch. I brought her to the vet, where she tested negative for all the bad stuff, and got her vaccinated. I named her Xica (Shee-kah) after Xica da Silva, a legendary 18th century Brazilian figure who rose from slavery to queendom. It turned out to suit her – she carried herself like a queen, or, as my parents’ housekeeper said, “ella es una gata con clase”, she’s a cat with class.

After the recommended slow introduction, Cam and Xica took well to each other. She loved him dearly, and he loved having her as a companion and (sometimes unwilling) wrestling participant. When I left Brasilia in 2022, I was in a full-leg splint, having torn my calf playing tennis a few days before my departure. I was wheeled through three airports by patient airport employees, with my leg sticking straight out and two cat carriers on my lap (or rather, sitting on top of a surfboard bag on my lap, inside of which was not a surfboard but an alligator-shaped table that I couldn’t help but buy).   

Back in Houston, we started living at my parents’ while I house-hunted, and my parents fell in love with the little duo I brought with me. Xica acted as Cam’s protector: when he would climb into the oak trees of my parents’ front yard, she would sit at the base of the tree and cry up at him, beckoning him to not climb so high. Over the next year, Cam and Xica would shuttle back and forth between my place and my parents – which acted like their suburban vacation home where they were allowed to go outside.  They were treated to a ridiculous amount of attention and love from my parents, which I am very grateful for.

In the winter of 2023, Xica started having teeth problems, which seemed random for a two-year old cat. They were bad enough that the vet extracted almost all of her teeth, but in the days following her surgery, she grew lethargic and feverish. I took her to the vet on Dec. 23, out of an abundance of caution just because clinics would soon be closed for the holidays. The vet wanted to test her for feline leukemia virus, which I mildly protested against since she had tested negative twice – once when I got her in Brazil, and again for her customs paperwork to enter the U.S.. Plus, she’d been vaccinated and boosted against it. Sadly, the vet was right, she was positive for the virus, and her prognosis was poor. I was so rattled by the news that I rear ended a car on my way home. She simply never bounced back, and two days later, we said goodbye to her on Christmas morning.

Six months later, I finally worked up the courage to have Cam tested for leukemia, and, heartbreakingly, he tested positive too. Since Cam’s diagnosis was terminal, I was determined to not let him suffer, something I am so very gloriously proud that I accomplished. For the past year, Cam has lived a fabulous life we should all be so lucky to experience. At my place, he would spend his days playing soccer and snacking, and his nights sleeping outside in his tower on his catio, where he could watch the nighttime Montrose action, of which there is plenty. When I had friends over, he would put on a show, rolling over in the middle of the room or sitting in their laps (he never cared much about sitting in my lap). He loved kids.

   Still experiencing “Barrier Refusal Syndrome,” he would cry at the door to go out, and so we started living a lifestyle of 2x daily walks around the yard on a leash. He loved these walks, especially when one of his dog friends would walk by with their owners in the evenings. He was sometimes frighteningly (for mom) fearless, and would slip through the gate and go right up to the dogs to sniff noses. The dogs would initially be startled but usually get happy, tails wagging, and want to play.

If a neighbor passed by while I was in the yard without Cam, usually because he was hanging at my parents’, they would ask about him, and their dogs would look around for him. Sometimes, cars driving by would stop to take pictures of me walking Cam on a leash, which isn’t exactly the look I was going for, but when you have a cat with “BFS”, what can you do. (Mom bought me a cat stroller for Christmas this year, which I politely asked her to return — you’ve gotta draw the line somewhere). But his favorite times (when not cuddling with me, of course), were when he was spending time with my dad. He and my dad bonded so deeply, it was hard to imagine how either had existed without the other. Cam would follow my dad absolutely everywhere: to the kitchen, to the exercise room, to the bathroom. They had a whole daily routine, which started with brushing their teeth together. Really: dad would use his electric toothbrush, while Cam would massage his own gums with the other end of it. Their day involved Cam getting many, many snacks – which I didn’t approve of – and he was allowed to jump on counters he wasn’t allowed to at my place. It was a free for all.

In the morning, they would walk a route around the backyard, with different petting stations, with dad lifting him up to walk on the fence. At sunset, during “cat time”, dad would sit in the front yard on the bench, while Cam would come out and chase little bugs and squirrels in the yard.   

Like my dad, his energy was contagious, and my parents’ elderly cat Dante would join in on the fun as well. Cam and dad would walk around the cul-de-sac, with Cameron following dad without being called, jumping up onto certain mailboxes for excessive petting. My dad is supposedly retired, and in his (non) retirement, taking care of Cam became his beloved hobby – Cam was a participant in many of his Zoom meetings. They share the same personality, with both likely experiencing BRS and an incessant need for action. I am so grateful they got to experience each other (if only to spend their excessive energy on each other and not drive the rest of us crazy). My dad would give him what he called “heart hugs”, where he would squeeze him tightly to his chest. Cam loved every one.

*

Cameron, this little animal, brought all of this joy into my life and the lives of so many others in less than five years.

I had hoped to have him with me for 20 years, but one month ago, I brought him to the vet because I felt like he was eating a lot but not gaining weight. She did bloodwork and told me she thought he had around six months left to live. I was truly devastated. Although at some point in the past I had read that cats with feline leukemia only live 4-6 years on average, I had managed to bury that fact and was in denial, I suppose. So the news last month hit me hard, and began my grieving process for my little boy.

At the same time, I was so, so, so very grateful for the heads up, even if I wasn’t ready for it.

While I was in Italy this past month, he played with his petsitter Jane and grand-brother Dante for a week, before being reunited with my parents when they got back from Italy. My dad sent videos of him lying upside down gazing at the clouds, playing in the yard, napping between dad and his keyboard, and walking around the cul-de-sac with dad as they loved to do. I hadn’t seen him gazing at the clouds like that before, and even as I saw that photo of him from far away, a part of me felt like he was soaking it all in while he could, savoring every moment.  Amen.

That gave me such warmth, and allowed me to feel OK staying in Italy a little longer. On Monday, I spoke with my parents on the phone, and my dad said Cam was fine but hadn’t gone outside for two days – he ventured that it was because it was hot. But my mama heart clenched, and I booked my ticket home for Tuesday. At 6 a.m., as I rode the boat away from Ischia’s gorgeous Mediterranean paradise back toward the mainland, a voice in my head chastised me for leaving my beautiful happy place just because my cat didn’t want to go outside in the Houston summer. But my gut was confident, and I am so happy I did. When I got back to him, he started declining quickly over just two days, and I couldn’t help but think he had been holding out for me.

•

He came into my life like a treasure, and I said goodbye to him cradling him like a baby, like the treasure he was, nuzzling his cheek and telling him “mommy loves you” until he passed. My deep hope, a wish that he amazingly made come true, was that he would give me a kiss by licking my nose one last time. I didn’t think he would be able to, since the vet office is a stressful, public setting and he wasn’t feeling great. But bless his heart, he did, he knew.

I am so blessed to have had such a great kitty come into my life. And so thankful to all of the people who helped make his life even more joyful. My heart is broken, but I am so happy that he is able to meet back up with his sister in peace, and that he knew he was loved deeply up until his last breath. Last night, we gave a cheers to Cameron on an unlikely, rich life well-lived. 🩵