Litha Eve and Luna

[angela_n_hunt]

It's Litha Eve.  Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice and the longest day.  Tomorrow, Luna will be gone.

That's Luna on the other side of the screen door when he was young and still insisting on being an outdoor cat.

That's from a few years ago, when he was still a giant of a cat with scimitar claws and a persona more like a bear than a cat. He was always my little bear spirit.

I won't talk about what he looked like when we took him to the vet just now.

I won't.

I will remember him like this. Enormous and black with golden eyes and a white star on his chest. I will remember all the times he comforted me. I will remember all the times he sat on my lap and purred and chewed on my hand as I scratched him, because he firmly believed that love was pain and biting meant he loved you. Hard.

And he was love. So much love. A purr that rumbled your bones.  The calmest, mellowest cat you ever met.  Afraid of neither man nor beast nor dog nor truck.

I will remember how he howled outside the house in Beverlywood and wouldn't come in until we went out and found him sheltering a little gray kitten who we named William III.  I will remember how he freaked out when we moved from the Venice house and acted so certain that we were leaving him behind and how he completely calmed down when we put him in the carrier to go to the next house.  How he finally realized that we would never leave him behind.

No, we, I would never leave him behind.  But now he's left me behind.

He's the last of an era. The last cat to have known my familiar, Ming. The last cat that came to me before I was married or had children or the life I have now.

Goodbye, Luna. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, old man. Tell Ming I love her when you see her. But now it's time to rest, my darling.

I love you forever.

Comments

[angela-n-hunt.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That means a lot to me, especially from you.