Best friends shouldn’t leave you.
Well it has been nearly two months and I am still coming to terms with the loss of Grim. So I thought I would take the time and write down some of my fondest memories of him.
Malgrim was one of four kittens of a friend’s friend’s boyfriend’s cat. One kitten looked Himalayan, two were tabby and one I think was black. I don’t remember what made me choose him, except for the fact I was looking for a tom cat. As a kitten Grim had the largest ears, his first nickname, of many over the years, was beanie head. The rest of him was so cute and tiny. I got it into my head, after hearing that most cats actually like water, to test this with the new kitten. So what better way to test the theory than to bring my new kitten into the shower with me? Did I mention that it was one of those showers with the sliding door? Grim wasn’t very pleased when I turned on the shower, there was a bit of blood before I managed to get the door open, and him out of the tub. I have never seen such an evil look on a cat before or since. At the time I wondered if he would ever trust me again, but he was forgiving. It was so nice having him curl up on my bed at night to cuddle with me. In the mornings we had a ritual. I didn’t wake very easily, so he would take a running leap at the bed to land on my bladder. I would bolt awake, run to the bathroom and when finished fill his food bowl before going back to bed. It wasn’t the most pleasant system, but it worked for us.
A few weeks before he was to be fixed Grim managed to rip open a screen to the window of our ground level apartment. I was panicked, spent hours searching for him, and eventually left a bowl of food by the open window. Later that night I awoke to strange sounds coming from the kitchen. I found Grim coming back in the window, pulled him into the room and shut it. He took one look at me, could see how ticked off I was, and decided to sprint to the bedroom. I beat him down the hall and shut the bedroom door in his face. I was damned if he was going to go carousing all day and then come home to cuddle with me! The next day I opened my bedroom door to find every cat toy in the house piled there as a plea for forgiveness.
Eventually we had to more to a new apartment. During the move I worried that Grim would be bored, as I would have to leave him at home alone during the day. So I decided to leave him a sock filled with catnip as a toy to while away the time alone. I came home that afternoon to find Grim splayed out on his belly, drool covered sock in his mouth and my entire kitchen floor “mopped.”
I could go on, there are numerous stories of cute, funny and crazy things Grim did in his life. But the most important thing was that Grim gave me unconditional love during the years I needed it the most. During my time with Grim, and before I met my partner Brain, I lived in about ten different apartments, had about ten different low paying jobs, had about twenty different relationships, and as many breakups. People often think of cats as being standoffish, but whenever my heart was broken Grim was there trying to comfort me.
I still miss him.
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