My Blacky Cat 10

 Blacky Cat died two weeks ago.  Some kind of "mass" was growing in his abdomen – cancer, probably – but he didn’t show any signs that I could read and so his last couple of days were painful and less than excellent.

Blacky came down with diabetes in 2009; I gave him insulin shots twice a day and I am happy to report that my cat did not die of diabetes.  Twice a day for three years – I had over two thousand used syringes in bags to deal with last week.

Blacky Cat took over my "paper bag drawer" in the kitchen as a place for him to rest.

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I had Blacky eleven and a half years; he was going to be twelve in April.

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Over the years here on Open Diary, I wrote about and took pictures of my cat, and readers have sent me cat magnets:

Now, I have these magnets and these pictures to look at.  Blacky Cat is gone but lives on in my heart.  Looking at these pictures and thinking about him over the last two weeks has been helpful to me to get past my grief.

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The hardest parts are when I leave or come home; for many years, I told Blacky where I was going and when I’d be back, and when I did come back, I could hear him meow as the elevator let me off on my floor.  He would hear me – sense me if I didn’t talk, and would be waiting by the door to greet me and to sniff me up – "where have you been?"

"Outside" for my cat was either the hallway or my apartment’s balcony.  I grew grass outside for him; he loved to lie in the sun on the balcony in the summers.

Blacky was with me through significant portions of my life.  I was still recovering from the car wreck in 1998 when he came to live with me in 2000.  His first year here saw me graduate from college.  He saw this apartment change over the years – new windows and a new sliding glass door onto the balcony and new fridge.  My friend K* from Japan came ever summer – Blacky loved her because she always bought HIM sliced turkey.  He would begin to purr every year, when I would begin telling him that K* was coming.  He was my people judge – how he acted with guests told me what kind of people they were.

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Fro the first few days after he died, I thought I caught glimpses of him moving through the apartment.  It might be that for nearly 12 years, I had been used to catching glimpses of my shadow cat as he slid through the apartment… but I think he was checking up on me, to make sure I was ok.

I don’t see those shadows any more.

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Blacky was the best cat I ever had.  I miss him.

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