I love you Hooks.

I hope you will not mind me saying (writing, whatever) this, but I do not mean to be patronizing. I am sorry for your loss, and for your kitty’s loss of his life, for the pain you and he have gone through and that which you are still feeling.

Sometimes I save photographs of cats that humans uploaded to the Internet. I saved your cat’s photograph because he is beautiful.

My favorite kitty color scheme, or whatever, is the gray and black tabby with yellow mixed in across the belly, chest, and face. I don’t know if that is a tortoise shell tabby or what, but I like that coloration very much. I guess it may be because I had three with those colors, not that I loved any of the others any less.

One of them was named Duplicat. She looked like her mother. One time she and Smudge and I moved to a new apartment. I kept them inside for a few days as usual to help them understand that we lived there. And then one night we went outside. When it came time for me to leave for work, they just would not come inside. They refused to let me catch them and bring them inside. Catching them was not something I ever needed to do before. They were both almost ten years old by then, so I was surprised by their unwillingness to cooperate. I would have just stayed out there to wait for them till they were ready to come inside, but eventually I had to go to work.

When I came home in the morning, only Smudge was there, waiting in the oleanders. She came running up after I got out of the car. Duplicat was a homing cat, or whatever. She had gone home before twice, two miles through rural terrain. There wasn’t any way she could have made it back this time though. I never made them wear collars with tags. I couldn’t find her, and no one could telephone to say they found her. She was just gone. Crying again now.

A few years later, the veterinarian gave Smudge a shot to put her to sleep while I held her. He said she was just old, but I couldn’t help thinking that if I had more money, if I wasn’t a loser, I couldn’t have afforded to help her.

Back in November of 2016, someone posted a topic thing here called “Top 10 Reasons People Commit Suicide” or something like that. Those who posted reply comments added to the list beginning with 11 or they listed the numbers from 1 to 10 that applied to them. I listed the numbers that applied to me, typing the number for guilt many times. That’s what I feel the most guilty about, what happened to Duplicat and Smudge and other cats who lived with me whose health and safety I did not do as good of a job as I could have done to protect.

I hope you will be all right.