#oneaday Day 750: Cooling and cat-proofing

The heat wave we've been suffering all week appears to have broken; outside is a relatively normal-feeling temperature right now, the humidity is down to levels where it's actually possible to breathe, and the sky has taken on a typically British summertime partially overcast look. It's really quite pleasant; if it could just stay like this, that would be absolutely lovely.

The view through the patio doors as I type this.

Andie has been spending some time putting up window screens, which will have the dual purpose of "cat-proofing" the windows and allowing us to cool the house down somewhat by actually having the windows open. Obviously we are not keen for any sort of repeat of the last three weeks, so we are hoping that this particular solution — some seemingly well-crafted screens for the windows, attached to the frames via Velcro — will prove adequate. Oliver has not yet attempted to escape through one of the open windows and the house is significantly cooler than it has been for the past few days, so it's looking like we might be on to a winner.

Of course, we're still both extremely worried that he will somehow find his way out again, particularly if he succeeds in figuring out how to remove the window screens — if, indeed, he figures out that is a thing that is possible. Thus far he has shown no interest in wanting to move or scratch them — indeed, both cats have mostly just seemed appreciative that they can enjoy a bit of fresh air coming into the house, particularly now that there is a bit of a breeze coming in from outside, rather than the oppressively still and humid air of the last few days.

It is good to be able to leave the air-conditioned bedroom and enjoy a relatively normal existence in the rest of the house. Today I have mostly been playing the new Star Fox, which you can read more about over on MoeGamer. It's also actually our wedding anniversary today, but we never make a particularly big deal out of that. We are grateful to our respective parents for their generous financial gifts, however; those are going a significant way towards us being able to have another holiday in September as a "do-over" of the one we just had — and hopefully this time without the anxiety of a missing little ginger twat.

Oliver himself appears to have pretty much made a full recovery. He is behaving just like he used to — right down to showing an unhealthy interest in batting my Senran Kagura collection off the shelves in the living room — and is jumping up to his favourite high places, including the top shelf in the catio and the top of our media cabinet. He hasn't yet been back up to the very top of his cat tree, however; he's been most of the way up, but not all of the way up. We think he's dealing with a combination of still being a bit weak in his back legs (something the vet mentioned) and potentially still having a bit of trauma over being stuck up an actual tree, and thus perhaps not wanting to climb too high. His back legs are a lot stronger than they were already, however; he's been jumping up onto things without issue, and playing with things like the silly little deeply, deeply loved kitten he is.

Patti has also mostly adjusted to Oliver's return. She is still hissing at him a bit if he gets too close, but one gets the impression her heart really isn't in it. Earlier today, Oliver went right up to her and rubbed his face on her, and she hissed quietly, but didn't attack him and didn't actually appear to be all that bothered. I think she just feels obliged to appear mad at him, because she absolutely definitely won't admit that she was missing him and pining for him while he was absent.

Anyway, all in all, it has been a pleasant Saturday, and in the knowledge that some of the most difficult, time-consuming and challenging projects at work are now pretty much done, I actually feel like I can properly relax for the first time in quite a while! I recommend it.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

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#oneaday Day 746: Decompression

I know I said I'd write about something else on here, but after the late-night update on the situation, I feel inclined to bring this little saga to something of a "close" in a more conclusive manner. We are exhausted and emotional, but delighted beyond belief to have our precious Oliver back at home with us. There will be images of him peppered throughout this post.

It's hard to believe that this whole saga is over — and over in a way that is about the best possible way it could have resolved itself, outside of him coming home a little bit earlier. We took him to the vet today to get checked over, and outside of him having lost a bit of weight and muscle definition on his legs — unsurprising given his three weeks living rough — he has been given a completely clean bill of health. This is our last remaining worry put to rest: he is back, he is alive, he is safe, and he is healthy. Evidently he was a very lucky boy — and a clever boy for taking care of himself for so long; things could have been much worse, and I am grateful to anything that will listen that things did not end up that way.

Patti has not yet adjusted to his presence. She was very clearly missing him, because we caught her looking for him, she was acting incredibly clingy and occasionally letting out the most heartbreaking plaintive howls of an evening. But as soon as he came back, she was puffing up, growling and hissing, and she's spent all of today in the wardrobe. The wardrobe is a safe place. She is fine in there, she's just not quite ready to come out again yet. But she will get there.

As for Oliver himself, he is doing just fine. He's clearly very tired by his whole ordeal — and who can blame him? — but he's already settling back into his usual routines and behaviour. The one and only thing that has really changed about the way he behaves is that he is a lot more vocal now than he was before he escaped; he is spending a lot of time shouting at us, which is probably an aftereffect of him calling for us up the tree last night. He wants to know that we are nearby, and that he is safe.

The one thing we'll probably never know is where he went for most of those three weeks. Given that we found him a couple of hundred yards down the road, he probably didn't go all that far, but aside from him being stuck up a tree last night, we have no insight as to where he might have been. Was he locked in somewhere? Quite possibly. Was he taken in by somebody? Probably not, as otherwise he'd probably be a bit more well-fed than he is now. Did he just get lost? Entirely possible, as he's never been outside in this neighbourhood before, and thus even though we left him plenty of familiar scents outside, he was unable to find his way home by himself, even though he was so close. So very close.

The hardest thing about the whole situation was contemplating the possibility that we might never see him again. There are things everywhere in the house that remind us of him. There's some cat plushies on the shelves in the living room: a black one and a ginger one, for Patti and him. There's a little stained glass thing depicting a black cat and a ginger cat hanging out together on the shed. The wallpaper on my living room PC was Oliver. The avatar I used on Facebook and Nextdoor was Oliver. Days before he went away, I set my blog to automatically set a "Featured Image" on every single post that didn't already have one, and for the image in question to be one that showed Oliver and Patti napping together. I couldn't even contemplate booting up Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream for Switch, because I made anthropomorphised versions of Oliver and Patti in that game, and playing it while we didn't even know if Oliver was still alive or not would have absolutely broken my heart even more than it was already.

For me, one of the worst parts of dealing with some sort of loss is seeing all the remnants that are left behind, and deciding what you are going to do with them. Just little things that remind you of who or what you have lost; sometimes even the simplest, silliest little thing can bring you to tears. Back during a particularly bleak period in my life circa 2010 — the time I split from my first wife and was faced with essentially having to completely "reset" my post-graduate life and start over — I described these things as "crystallised memories", and it's a description I stand by. There they sit: a solid, tangible reminder of something that was once in your life and now is not. It can be difficult to let go of them, but sometimes that is the healthiest thing to do.

Thankfully, none of that was necessary this time around. And while there most certainly was a great deal of grief while Oliver was away from home, we can now thankfully set that grief aside and appreciate how lucky we are to have someone we love so much and that we feared we'd lost forever return to our lives, safe and well. Sometimes amazing things really do happen, seemingly against all odds.

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#oneaday Day 745b: Oliver's return, the kindness of strangers, and the unkindness of the people you might need in a crisis

Hello. Second entry for today (although technically it's tomorrow now, as it's 1:21am as I type this) but this is big, important news: OLIVER HAS RETURNED!

Oh my God. I am an emotional wreck, and so is Andie, but our brave little boy managed to survive for three weeks out in the wilds of Lordswood, and we found him this evening thanks to a tip from a kind neighbour on Nextdoor. I had a feeling that either Facebook or Nextdoor, for all those platforms' many, many faults, would be the main way in which we tracked down our precious boy — but it certainly didn't hurt to advertise him on all manner of different services, even if it cost money to do so in some cases.

Our neighbour, Sam, reported that they had seen a ginger cat on his security cameras recently, and that they'd also been hearing a cat crying from the property over the road from them for a little while. We went out to go and check the area on the offchance that we would find at least a clue — and we heard a yowling from up in the tree. I knew immediately that it was Oliver. Oliver has never been a particularly vocal cat except under quite specific circumstances — usually rolling on the patio in the sunshine — but I recognised his voice straight away, and as soon as I saw him up there, I knew.

We couldn't work out how to get to him, though. The tree he was up was on private property — a children's home, I believe? — and initially we couldn't work out how to get in touch with them. When we did manage to run into a staff member leaving the property, they basically said they couldn't (or wouldn't) help us and said we'd have to wait until the morning, even though we made it clear Oliver has been missing for three weeks, and this was the first time we'd seen him.

So from there we tried to work out what to do next. Do you actually call the fire brigade when a cat is stuck up a tree? Apparently Hampshire Fire Service has a specialised animal rescue unit, but they are somewhere not in Southampton, and they weren't answering their phones. I called 101 and asked the police what we should do, and they said to phone the fire brigade. I phoned the fire brigade and they said that no, they don't do that, it's an urban legend.

So then what? I tried the 24-hour RSPCA hotline for animal welfare, but it turns out that it is not, in fact, a 24-hour service. I tried calling a local tree surgeon who had a 24-hour hotline for animal rescues, but again, it turns out that it is not, in fact, a 24-hour service either. Seemingly no-one was willing to help, at all. No-one that you would think to try calling in a situation like this was going to help us. Panic started to set in.

On the off-chance, I posted an update on both Facebook and Nextdoor that we had found Oliver, but we needed help. I honestly wasn't expecting anyone to come — but three very kind people showed up at various points, all very kind, considerate and understanding of our situation and our emotional state. Eventually a chap who was clearly some sort of tradesman in possession of an absolutely massive ladder — and who had clearly done this many times before — showed up, shot up his ladder and was back down with our precious boy in less than five minutes. Amazing.

Anyway. Fuck me, that was an awful three weeks. On the plus side, I can get back to writing about other things on here now, which I'm sure you'll all be delighted to hear. Thank you all for your patience — and for the kind words you have had to share during this absolutely, mindblowingly traumatic three weeks! I'm just glad it all ended well — though we're taking Oliver to the vet for a checkup tomorrow just in case.

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#oneaday Day 738: Spoiling Patti

Any time something bad happens involving a family member — and cats are family members, I will brook absolutely no argument on this front — it is easy to focus on that one member who is the focal point of whatever The Bad Thing is. In this case, the majority of our attention has, of course, been on Oliver, because we want nothing more than to see him back. But upon our return, we have been making a special effort to spoil our other cat, Patti, because not only has she had to deal with us being away for a week — and she doesn't like it when we go down to the shops, let alone go away for a whole week — she's had to do it with the disruption to her usual routine that comes with Oliver's absence. And Patti is very much a creature of habit.

Thankfully, as discovered by my mother-in-law, Agnes, who was looking after her while we were away (as well as looking out for Oliver on the chance he would return of his own accord), it is possible to establish a new Routine with Patti quite easily. It takes her a few days to become accustomed to the presence of Agnes — a process which always leads to initially begrudging and eventually enthusiastic acceptance of her as the temporary primary cat-caregiver — but by the time we come back they are always the best of friends.

This time around, Agnes was delighted to describe that she and Patti had established a new Routine for each day: Patti would spend each day either sitting on our bed or the windowsill, while Agnes would potter around in the garden and do all the tidying up we told her not to do while we were away, because she should be taking it easy. Then, when the evening came, Agnes would sit in my customary spot on the sofa in the living room, Patti would jump up, and Agnes would brush Patti. This became such an established Routine over the course of the last week that apparently on the one evening where Agnes did not follow this Routine, Patti went and fetched her from the other room until she got her nightly brushing to her satisfaction.

Patti is spoiled. She has been ever since we got her. She didn't have the best start in life, as she was apparently abandoned by her previous owners, and this led to her being a somewhat nervous, timid girl, especially around strangers. This, of course, led to us wanting to create the happiest, most safe-feeling home she could possibly have. She deserves it, we figured. Our hearts melted the moment we met her, and she has been the most wonderful companion ever since.

She will habitually run and hide whenever someone unfamiliar (or someone who simply hasn't been here for a while) comes into the house, but she is loving, tactile and very vocal with the pair of us. When we first met her at the local shelter, she was described as a "lovely girl" but "shy". What they didn't tell us — or they didn't know — was that those two things were not simple descriptors of her personality, but rather her two different, distinct modes. She is a lovely girl sometimes (with us), but she is shy at others (around strangers). I see the fact that her lovely girl side has only flourished over the years she has been with us as reflecting well on us as her caregivers — something which we would probably both do well to remember while we keep blaming ourselves for Oliver's disappearance.

So yes, although Agnes has gone home this evening, Patti has had her brush on the sofa. She knows something is wrong — how could she not, with Oliver's sudden absence, because Oliver absolutely adores Patti to a degree that she would sometimes rather he tone down a bit — but she has seemingly already come to the understanding that we are doing our very best to return things to normality as much as we can. I hope and pray that means we can return Oliver to her as soon as we can — but regardless of what happens, she is going to get even more love, care and attention than she already does. She is our little princess, and she deserves all the happiness in the world. I just want, more than anything, to reunite her with her annoying little brother, and for our family to be whole again.

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#oneaday Day 737: Returning to reality

We go home tomorrow, which is going to be somewhat bittersweet, as I'm sure you can imagine. There has been absolutely no sign of Oliver over the course of the last week, no contact from anyone who has seen him, no sightings reported on social media and — perhaps thankfully? — no reports that he has passed away. So I choose to believe that he is still out there, somewhere, just waiting for us to find him. Perhaps it's all a game to him. He does love a game.

grayscale photography of concrete road during daytime — Photo by Airam Vargas on Pexels.com

I am, of course, still absolutely sick with worry. It has been two weeks today that he went missing, and whatever happens, I am always, always going to be wondering if there was more we could have done — more we should have done. There are zillions of online resources out there saying what you "should" do when a cat goes missing, but a significant proportion of them appear to be AI-generated drivel and pseudoscience.

I am not willing to give up on him, though. At this point, it feels like it will be unlikely that he will come home by himself for whatever reason, but I still want to go looking for him and will be doing so when we return home tomorrow. I don't know if I will be able to achieve anything — over the course of two weeks, it's entirely possible he could have gone a long way, although most supposed "experts" (with the caveat above) seem to believe that cats who spend the majority of their time indoors, as Oliver did, won't have actually ventured very far, and are probably hiding silently somewhere they feel is "safe". This, unfortunately, makes them extremely difficult to track down; the most supposedly reliable advice appears to be to bring things that are "familiar" to them — things that they recognise the smell or sound of.

Part of me is concerned that he has simply been taken by someone. Not necessarily stolen as such, but perhaps he was seen somewhere, the owner didn't think to get his microchip checked, and now thinks that they have a wonderful new cat in their family. If that has happened, I have absolutely no idea how we would go about finding him — although if this has happened, his status will be flagged up if and when he is taken to the vets or a shelter or something, and that, in turn, would allow us to be reunited. But that, of course, depends on the person in question thinking to take him to a vet or shelter — if indeed this is the situation in which he has found himself.

As I've said repeatedly over the course of the last two weeks, though, the absolutely impossible thing throughout all this is just not knowing anything. What made him jump out of the window? Which way did he go? Was he just exploring, or was he running from something? Is he hurt? Is he hungry? Has he been taking care of himself for the last two weeks? Has someone else been taking care of him for the last two weeks? I don't have any answers, and these myriad questions swirling around my brain are driving me absolutely spare.

I'm supposed to be going back to work on Tuesday, and it'll be right back into a difficult, stressful time, too. Honestly I'm not sure I'm going to be able to cope. I am wracked with pain, sadness, guilt, anger, frustration and all manner of other emotions, and I still don't really know how to process any of them, or how to direct any of them in a vaguely productive direction — either for getting some work done, or for tracking down our precious boy.

As with any difficult time, I guess it's just going to have to be a "one step at a time" sort of situation. I want to think this is all going to end happily and become a funny story to share in the years to come, but I am also fearing the worst. I don't want to lose him. He is so, so precious to me.

There is nothing I can do from where I am right now, though. Tomorrow is a new day, and we can decide what we need to do from there. So the best thing I can probably do at the moment is get some rest and try to come to tomorrow as alert and refreshed as is possible under the circumstances.

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#oneaday Day 730: Having to draw a line

I have posted more than 30 more flyers about Oliver today. Andie's mum went out calling for him last night. We have put out adverts on social media, informed the microchip company, informed our local vets, informed local cat charities. We have spent several nights staying up waiting, placing stinky pants, litter trays, favourite food and treats outside. We have wandered around the neighbourhood in multiple directions shaking treats and calling for him. At this point I think we have no other option than to draw a line and say that we have done everything we possibly can do for the little bugger, and the only thing really left is just… to wait.

yellow line between feet — Photo by Oleh Budurov on Pexels.com

It's not giving up. It's an acknowledgement that we have made an effort to try and find him, and thus far those efforts have been unsuccessful. This could mean any of a number of things: that he's no longer with us; that he doesn't want to be found; that he's gone far enough afield that we haven't been able to run into him as yet; that he's lost and doesn't know how to find his way home; that he's ended up locked in somewhere he shouldn't be; or that someone has taken him in, perhaps even thinking "ooh, I always wanted a cat, I'll keep this one".

Since we don't know the exact reason we have been unsuccessful as yet, it seems like the most sensible thing to do is just to wait and see if any of the seeds we have planted — by which I mean the social media posts, the leaflets, the informing of various local organisations — will bear fruit. This may end in tragedy — I hope it won't, but it might — or it may end in joyous reunion (and a very, very grounded cat). At this point, we just don't know, and as I've said numerous times over the course of the last week, that is one of the most difficult things about the entire situation.

Because we don't know what has happened, we're left in a strange sort of emotional limbo, where all the things we want to feel are both correct and incorrect at the same time. For me, the things that I am holding onto the most are 1) that he hasn't been found, having been hit by a car, on the side of the road somewhere, and thus is hopefully still out there somewhere, and that 2) there are many, many stories of cats who go missing for weeks at a time, who then subsequently come home safe and sound. Apparently my childhood cat, Penny, disappeared for six full weeks at one point, because she had "moved in" with another family. My only concern about this latter potential situation is how to find him if this has happened, and if the people he is with are honest enough to get his microchip scanned and return him to us.

But here, at nearly 7pm on Sunday night, the day before we're going away on holiday, I think I have to draw a line and say "that's everything I can do… for now". Andie's mum is holding the fort while we are away, so if he does turn up he will have a welcoming face ready to spoil him rotten, and if he still hasn't shown up by the time we return, we can continue our efforts to search for him then.

As I say, it's not giving up. It's giving ourselves permission to take a step away from what has been a horrible, stressful week, and to give ourselves some very much needed self-care. I sincerely hope this story has a happy ending, but for now, I guess it is on a hiatus of sorts.

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#oneaday Day 727: The longest days

In the grand scheme of things, it has only been a few days since Oliver went missing, but it feels like an absolute eternity. I am still refusing to give up on him — in fact, after I type this, I'm going to go out for a bit again — but it is getting very difficult to know what to do. Should I stay around the local area, given that we have seen absolutely no sign of him? Or should we spread our search a little further afield? There's a sports centre nearby that probably has lots of bushes a cat could hide in, so I think I might wander up in that direction this evening. In the absence of any sort of clues whatsoever, I can't think of anything else to do, other than to just go around the same area we've covered for the last few nights.

Apparently mostly indoor cats are inclined to head for home after around 5-7 days of being away, and indeed in the various Facebook and Nextdoor groups I've been dropping into over the course of the last few days, there are a lot of reports of cats that just turned up again after roughly this long — a lot more reports in that regard than those that remained missing for longer, or which… I don't even want to say it, even though I know it is a distinct possibility, especially the longer he is absent.

I guess the one thing I can vaguely take heart from is that because Oliver is microchipped (as is the law now, I believe), if he was to be found, we would have heard something. And we have not heard anything, which means that he is still out there somewhere. What state he's in, I have no idea, but he is still out there somewhere. And I just have to try and cling on to that for now.

Every time Patti looks out of the window, I am hoping that I'll just see his cheeky face looking back up at us, as if to say "what?" Every time our cameras report that there is movement outside, I hope that I'll see him sauntering around the corner as if nothing had happened. Every noise I hear outside, I hope I'll see his little golden eyes shining back at me.

I guess we just have to keep looking, keep hoping and keep waiting. Andie's mum is coming down on Saturday to help us keep looking if we haven't already been able to find him (or if he hasn't already found us). She was coming down anyway to look after the cats while we go away, so we are just going to try and enjoy our holiday as best we can under the circumstances, since it is too late for us to cancel and get a refund, otherwise we would have done that. That means someone is here while we are away, and will be able to keep an eye out for him, be here if he suddenly decides or manages to come home, and be able to go pick him up or whatever is needed if someone finds him and calls him in.

My heart is broken and my mood is pitch black. I don't know what to do. No-one prepares you for something like this, because there is no way you can prepare someone for something like this. All I can really do is refuse to give up completely. Our little man must have some street smarts; our little man must be able to find his way home. He must. He must.

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#oneaday Day 726: False hope

We have run into a ginger cat in the area where our caller yesterday reported seeing him (we think it was a "him" anyway) — both at night and, just now, in the daytime, and unfortunately, it was not Oliver. This cat was a very good cat, and quite friendly — though also a tad skittish — but it became clear before long that it wasn't our little boy.

We were extremely torn when we came across him last night, as the darkness made it difficult to see him clearly, and obviously, looking out, as we are, for a young ginger cat and then suddenly seeing one… well, you want to hope for the best, don't you? Both of us were feeling such desperation to see Oliver again that we were both having serious doubts about whether or not this cat, standing in front of us, was our special little man. Regretfully, we left him to it, as it looked like his home was somewhere near where we were looking — and when I ran into him earlier today, in the daytime, when it was much easier to see, I confirmed that it wasn't him. It didn't stop me involuntarily gasping when I first saw him come around the corner… but that hope was quickly dashed.

All this, of course, doesn't mean that he's not still out there somewhere, but it does mean that our one promising-seeming lead turned out to be unhelpful, and that is immensely demoralising. Andie is near-inconsolable right now, and I'm pretty sure if I stop Doing Things I will get into a similar state. That's why I went out on the trip where I ran into our ginger friend earlier; I can't just sit here and do nothing.

I'm gradually spreading the word online. Turns out there are quite a few places online where you can report missing pets, and not just Facebook. Some of these places want you to pay a bit, but the cost is primarily for them making a social media ad and then "boosting" it on your behalf. Don't worry, I researched all these places thoroughly before giving them any details. Naturally they want to try and reassure you that they have a solid success rate at this sort of thing, but we're both finding it very difficult right now.

Why hasn't he come home? Where has he gone? Is he hurt? Is he — and this is, of course, the one that hurts the most to consider — even still alive? The absolute worst thing about all this is not knowing. The one faint hope I cling to is that there are so many reports of cats that wandered off one evening and came back about 5-7 days later as if nothing had happened. I am hoping beyond hope that this is what will happen with Oliver — though it would be nice if he'd consider doing this a bit sooner.

As I say, the worst thing is not knowing, because it means I don't know how I should be feeling. Should I be hopeful? Should I be worried? Should I be sad? Should I be angry? Should I give up? Or should I keep believing that it'll all work out, somehow.

Unfortunately, bitter life experience has taught me that it does not, in fact, always work out, somehow. And thus, once again, we continue. Because that's all we can do.

I'm sorry this is all I'm talking about at the moment. But this is all I can think about at the moment.

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#oneaday Day 725: A spark of hope

Oliver still hasn't come back. We are, of course, still extremely worried and upset, and this is made all the more difficult by the fact that Patti has clearly realised something is wrong, too. She is very obviously looking around to try and find him, and earlier she let out an absolutely plaintive wail of a meow that made my heart absolutely break. I know, Patti. I want to make noises like that, too. But there is, at least, a faint spark of hope.

We've previously posted Oliver's picture and details on some local Facebook pages — the one thing Facebook is actually still vaguely useful for — and earlier today we took around a bunch of flyers to the houses and flats in the nearby vicinity. In the mid-afternoon I got a call from someone down the road; they weren't sure it was Oliver, but they had definitely seen a ginger cat on their back wall recently, and thought that he was "a very friendly chap".

Now, we're trying not to get our hopes up too much, because we know there is another ginger cat in the neighbourhood. The lady who called sounded like she hadn't seen the cat she saw before, however, which leads me to believe that it might, just might have been Oliver. There's also the fact that Andie has apparently encountered "the other ginger cat" and said that it was rather skittish as opposed to friendly; Oliver, meanwhile, has always got along with absolutely everyone he meets, and the personality of the cat our caller described very much sounded like him.

So we have not given up. We cannot give up. I refuse to give up. My heart is battered and bruised and broken from the last few days, and it is difficult to derive any joy from anything. But I cannot give up. I will not give up. He must be out there somewhere, and all we need to do is bring him home.

I do not yet know how we are going to do that, or indeed where he is. But this one little happening today helped me feel just one little spark of hope about the whole situation, and that is something that has been sorely needed since late on Sunday night.

I, of course, do not know how this particular episode of our lives is going to turn out. There is always the possibility that it will end in tragedy, and that is something I don't think I am prepared for. But, as my therapist has said to me on multiple occasions now, I am a survivor, and while I have faced many hardships on life's journey to date, I have made it through all of them so far.

I don't want to have to keep being a survivor, though. I want things to be nice, and happy, and free of worry, and neat. Life, however, is far from neat; simple existence is one of the messiest things imaginable, and I have not yet figured out how — or even if it's possible — to tidy it up.

And so, we continue. For now, we continue, not knowing. Tonight we will walk the streets once again in search of our beloved little man. And tomorrow is another day, whatever that might bring.

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#oneaday Day 458: A salute to Maru

It's a shame to start my holiday by responding to some bad news, but I couldn't let the passing of such a beloved figure pass without acknowledgement.

I am, of course, referring to the very sad departure of Maru, the Scottish Fold cat who has been a YouTube star since 2008, making him one of the original sources of "cat videos", that ever-reliable activity of those who can't think of anything better to do on the Internet. His owner announced the sad news yesterday, and I have to confess, it made me very sad indeed.

I know first-hand how hard it is to lose a pet. It is like losing a family member. Hell, it is losing a family member. It may be a family member who cannot speak in the same way as we can, it may be a family member who doesn't go out and get a job in the same way we can (although I bet in his own way Maru "earned his keep" in monetary terms!) but it doesn't make them any less important or meaningful to our existences.

Maru's passing is so sad because he was not only clearly a truly beloved pet for his owner, he was effectively a pet of the entire Internet. While I feel the number of people who know who you are referring to when you say "Maru" these days has declined somewhat compared to, say, ten years ago, he has still, without a doubt, touched hundreds of thousands of lives, possibly even millions. In some cases, he may have touched people's lives without them knowing who he was, but the joy he would have brought them in that brief encounter is something truly remarkable.

Maru was a cat with personality. He had a distinct attitude about him, and he clearly behaved in ways that he enjoyed. Granted, I suspect his owner would have "encouraged" him to engage in behaviours that made good videos, but I suspect those behaviours initially emerged completely organically. Our own cats both do silly and hilarious things, completely unprompted by us, so I have little to no doubt that one day, Maru would have just spontaneously leapt into a cardboard box, or belly-slid his way into a beer bottle multipack casing.

He also loved to fit himself into things that were not cat-shaped, such as boxes that were too small for him, and even glass bowls. Again, I suspect this is something that almost certainly happened naturally one day, and then he may well have been "encouraged" to do this a little more often for the sake of some videos. But I certainly don't begrudge Maru's owner — still mysterious and perpetually off-screen to this day, without even their gender being widespread knowledge — any of the fame their beloved cat attained during his long and very clearly happy lifetime.

Maru enjoyed 18 joyful years on this planet, and during this time he must have been one of the most loved pets in the entire world. Because, like I say, not only did he have the love of his owner — who clearly adored him — but he also had the love of pretty much the entire world, too. There aren't many individuals in this world who can truly say that; there aren't many people who can truly claim to be universally beloved, regardless of nationality, language, background, socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, sexuality or any of the other things you might care to mention that act as ways of dividing ourselves from one another.

Maru was a universal. Maru felt like he would be a constant. Sadly, he has gone to a better place now, but I suspect he will continue to be remembered and loved for many years to come. We love you, Maru, and I hope that one day we will have the chance to see you again.

I'll leave you with the tearjerking words of his owner, posted today, and I'm sure we all join them in saluting our dear, departed, beloved cat and the wonderful life he head.

"I'm lonely, so be sure to be born again soon!" I said to him insistently, but he is by nature a laid-back cat, and I wonder if he is relaxing in the sky now. But he loves to surprise us, so I'll wait patiently, hoping for a surprise from him.

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