It has been a mere 15 months since I said goodbye to my familiar, Dante. I can still barely look at his paw prints without tearing up… And now, my precious little Stormy has joined him.

She’d been declining for a while; she was about 17 years old. I shouldn’t be shocked, but it still hurts. It happened two weeks ago now and I’ve only just gotten myself together enough to cobble thoughts into something coherent. She was so sick by the time I took her in to the vet that night, she didn’t even put up a fight to go into the crate.

I held her as she passed and told her how much I loved her, I thanked her for coming into my life, I forgave her for all the times she drew blood with those claws of hers, and asked her to forgive me for not letting her go sooner.

This is literally the end of an era in my life… for nearly two decades it was me and Dante and Stormy. I’m having a not great time wrapping my brain around the fact that they’re both gone now.

I keep waiting for her to come climb onto my shoulder while I’m on the couch and it’s so weird that she’s not ever going to do that again… The Shadow boys are confused by the fact that they can sit closer to my face now since Stormy would growl at them if they go too close to what she claimed was her space.

The vet was very kind and let me tell her a few Stormy stories before I left. So I thought I’d do the same here.

Stormy was a dumpster baby. Her litter was found abandoned in a box by the dumpster behind the movie theatre in Fort St. John.I saw a photo of the kittens and could not believe she was real; I didn’t know that “diluted” was a colouring… she was so pretty.

Once they were cleared for adoption, I ventured to the SPCA. I didn’t have any hope she’d still be there, who wouldn’t want such a beautiful kitten? But by some miracle, she was there. The lady who worked there said the kitten wasn’t very friendly and might take a while to warm up to me.

Famous last words.

Stormy adored people. If someone other than me was in the apartment, she wanted their attention. The Telus installer when we moved to Dawson Creek said she was the friendliest cat he’d ever encountered on a job.

She only wanted to be petted on her head, any other spot and she would very loudly voice her displeasure. If she showed her belly, it was a trap; she didn’t want you to touch it, she only wanted you to think she wanted it and wasn’t above drawing blood if you fell for it.

Her favourite game at the apartment was Escape into the Hallway. The number of times I had to snatch her back after she darted out… it’s not like there was anything interesting in the hallway! On the few occasions she snuck out without me seeing, I’d come back from wherever I was to find her sitting at the top of the stairwell, waiting to be let back into the apartment. The fact that no one called the SPCA about the cat wandering the building, I am ever grateful.

She would often sleep draped over the internet router which I shouldn’t have allowed because I woke up one day to the Wi-Fi not working…. she’d barfed on the router and completely ruined it. The Telus operator laughed so hard when I told her the story.

Stormy’s greatest adventure is one I know very little about to this day. When she was about three years old, she disappeared off my third floor balcony. I had no idea where she went, just that she wasn’t on the balcony and not in the apartment.

I wandered the neighbourhood looking for her, checking under every bush and looking up every tree. I even visited the feral cat colony in the alley across the street, who were not impressed to see me even though I was just asking if they’d seen her.

After hours of searching and sitting in the living room crying that my little kitty was probably gone forever, because I tend to catastrophize, I made the decision to go out and look one more time before going to bed, even though it was almost midnight and dark.

I got downstairs and opened the door to leave the building… and there she was. She waltzed in swishing her tail like she owned the damn place. I cried and called her a bitch and brought her back upstairs, promising to never let her on the balcony ever again.

She still did, but only when supervised after that… I nearly had a heart attack every time she did.

Her nicknames included, but were not limited to, Stormcloud, Stormageddon, Stormy Baby, My Sweet Baby Girl, Princess Fluffy Butt, Little Bitch, Baby Boo, Your Highness She Said Sarcastically, My Girl, and Little Miss.

The vet said they don’t often see cats as old as her, so she must have had a good life to live so long. I cling to that notion, that I did enough and loved her enough for her to hang on for as long as she did.

And while she never really warmed up much to Sirius and Loki — mostly because they were twice her size once fully grown — I did witness her begrudgingly groom them both on separate occasions, so her last year wasn’t all bad.

I’m still mourning the end of this era, and will be for a while as I process… I’m just relieved she’s not in pain anymore.

I miss you, Little Stormy Baby.

-A.