Illegal Foreign Object

Magnolia joined our family almost exactly four years ago to today. We were a few months deep into the pandemic, Marie was getting cabin fever and decided to go to a plant nursery to walk around. While she was there, a tiny calico marched up to her, screamed at the top of her little lungs, and just like that the universal cat distribution system had placed another kitty with a new home.

The first time I ever held Magnolia, she fell asleep on my chest. That became the norm for the first year of her life. I’d wake up in the morning 30-45 minutes before everyone else, feed Magnolia and her big brother Meowricio (Mowz for short), then let them outside to do their business. A few minutes later, Magnolia would wander back in, climb up onto my chest, and fall back asleep. If I’m being truthful, those were some of the happiest, most purely joyful moments I’ve ever had in my life. Magnolia and I bonded immediately.

She became my little shadow. We made breakfast together, put groceries away together, watched TV together (she LOVED professional wrestling when she was little). When Carlos and I would throw the football, there was never a time when she wasn’t there watching us. Marie called her “the other woman” because Wagz had this fantastic ability to worm her way up against my leg whenever I hugged or kissed Marie. She cried when one of us would leave the house and screamed out when we returned to her.

Magnolia’s personality and brains were off the charts. Watching her figure out things like how to open the refrigerator, the oven, and the microwave made for hilarious viewing. She’d been with us for two months when I walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and found her sitting inside. Those crazy Rostipollo boxes that you have to push down open, then pull the individual flaps to open? Magnolia figured that thing out in 20 seconds. My Honey Bear was quite the eater.

For four years, Magnolia was a big part of my world. This morning, she passed away. It was sudden, we are shaken to our foundation, and I have cried harder today than all the times I’ve cried combined over the last several years. Now, I just feel dead inside — like someone took all the world’s love from me. Like the gods snuffed out my Sun. I’m empty and impossibly sad.

I never gave a shit about an afterlife until the idea of never seeing a loved one again became an emotionally unbearable feeling. I don’t know what Heaven looks like to you. I try to not give it much thought. Today, however, it looks like me getting to hold Magnolia again. I am thankful for all the times she crawled up into my arms, all the times she bumped up next to me when she knew I was going through it, and each and every time she leaned in and kissed my nose. The realization that I’ll never feel another one of those little kisses has me bawling all over again. She loved our family, but I was “her human”. Things feel so incredibly dark right now.

I want to believe this will pass, but I know better. The hole her death has left on my heart will never be filled. It’ll scab over, life will go on, but the emptiness will always sit beneath the scar tissue. And it’s in that void where I’ll carry her, forever. This will always hurt.

I love you so much, Honey Bear. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to hold you one last time before you left us. It’ll pass, but right now I hate myself for not being there for you. I hate myself as much as I love you.