Sonny

For nearly thirteen years, Sonny was the constant in my life. Through every move and every hard season, through the long nights, he was simply there, asking for nothing, staying close.

He began in a hard place, one of too many cats in a hoarding home, and he came to me through the SPCA in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, on the 5th of October, 2013; a tiny orange kitten with ears too big for his head. Whatever those first weeks had been, I brought him home that same afternoon, and he was mine, and I was his, from that day on. Every day after was warm, and safe, and loved.

He had a way of finding me exactly when I needed him. On the days the world was too much, he would settle in beside me and make the room feel survivable again. He never fixed anything. He just stayed. That turned out to be everything.

He was the comfort in the hours the epitaph names, the lonely ones and the painful ones. I met a lot of them with him beside me, and I do not think I would have met them as well alone.

I don’t yet know how to be in a home he isn’t in. I keep looking for him in the places he used to be, and I think I will for a long while.

Thank you, Sonny. For the years, for the warmth, for staying. You were loved completely, and you are missed exactly that much.