When someone takes a bullet for you, they live on forever

I met Simón on a spring weekend walking through Parque Forestal. There was an adoption fair with many dogs. Living in an apartment and working 8 to 6 doesn’t really work for a dog. Almost at the exit was a kennel with feline babies, and the guy there hands me one to see if I like him. 14 years later I held that baby’s paw while he got the final shot.

Orange, as I called Simón (that, or Orangina or Naranjo) was a beautifully faced, big boned, fat belly, broken tailed cat. And we were in love.

It wasn’t instant. He was standoffish with everyone when he first met them, and that included me. One day however his child curiosity made him slip and fall, and hit his tiny head on a board. I saw it and ran to pick him up and nurse him. I held him and kissed him for the first time. He looked at me, with the only tear I have ever seen on a cat. And that was it. He knew he was loved. We became best friends. He was feisty, big and strong. To hug him I’d have to tackle him on the bed and Elvira his ass. He loved it.

We lived with my ex. They got along fine but Simon was afraid every time we’d fight and scream and bang things. And that would happen often. And then more. And then suddenly my tactic was to comply and avoid. Unsuccessful many times, but a lot not. I thought I could live that way. I lashed out elsewhere, at work. I was stoic in my harsh view of reality, while filling my life with courses, workshops, work, tv, and some (not many) friends. We were all living in a 3 bedroom space that got badly wrecked  in the 2010 earthquake. The insurance money came through, but we never used it. He saved it. Aside from the broken wall, there was stuff bursting from every shelf, drawer, closet, cabinet and available corner. Nothing was ever thrown away it seems. Not dirty per se, definitely not tidy or elegant.

Simon was the first baby I had on my own. Then came Pepita who was a street hoodlum. So sly and desperate for touch and caress. Her death is also linked to this relationship. About 5 years before the end I took off and rented an apartment for me and the cats for almost a year. I needed time and space from him. I didn’t end it, because I was… well we can decide what I was later. I didn’t end it, it was time and space, with dates and sleep overs in each other’s place. One morning i woke up and there was a cat missing. Took me forever to realize Pepita was not in any of the possible places a mid sized cat could be in a one bedroom. She fell off the 9th floor to the underground garage. The grief and I went back to living with the ex.

Simon was never sick. I’d take him to the vet once in a while, like you do. But my cats never left the apartment. Ever. And in those living conditions we never had anyone over. Cats were safe from catching things so vet visits became none at all. Those days I was focused on not dying from anger and sadness and frustration and impotence and invisibility. I told him so many times I felt like he treated me like furniture.

And one day, on March 3 at 7pm-ish, 2019, I got a call from one of my best friends from college that my very best friend had passed away. Immediately, I got on a plane headed to El Paso (actually it was a week later after crying on civil servants to get an expedited new passport). I went and saw Kara, 9-year old Oscar, and her sweet parents. Saw Nel’s mom and siblings. And I saw Javier, Nel’s best friend and guy I had a thing with for a month my first year of college. I was the one who tracked him and Hector down on Facebook to let them know the sad news. I was in the US for 48hrs and in that time I woke up. What the fuck was my life about? Life is short, Nel told us all by dying at 43 from unknown causes, and filled with hot guys who declared their love to me (yea, that happened after the funeral) and I am trying not to suffocate from someone else’s narcissism? (These words come after 2 years of reflection and analysis).

Less than a month later I had the final fight. He threw me out and I decided to be free of him. No more. Period. Life changed! I moved in with an old colleague from work. Travelled back to the US to get that love professed- – -not a good decision in the end, turned out I ran from one ex to another ex with very similar traits. It took me half a year to realize, but continents apart helped refocus my attention nationally. And I struck gold.

Ch-ch-changes included my cats of course, and so I took them to the vet to get checked out after oh so many years. They were meeting new people and experiencing new spaces after all. Simon was diagnosed diabetic. Insulin dependent diabetic. Had a mild heart issue also. He was getting on in years but I knew that all his ailments were due to the emotionally toxic environment he lived in his whole life. Running away from rooms where voices were raised. Being complicit to my loneliness spent on the couch watching tv and eating. We loved each other so much but I realized too late he had absorbed what I had absorbed. He was a small animal that took on an adult’s emotional weight on himself. We metabolize and process differently. He had me. I had a therapist.

Today he died and with him goes all the bad that we both received. During these last two years we lived free of abuse I took the best care of him I had in me. Made everything available for his comfort and wellbeing. Scheduled my life around his medicine. Spent any money required for special food, vet, hospital, hard to find meds, anything. Service, commitment and love. I got him, I understood what he communicated to me. And in the last hour I sat with him to say goodbye I got it. He would take with him all the illness and trauma caused from years of my self neglect and submission to an ideal. All of it, including mine.

His memory will forever more live in my heart and give me joy. I am honored and grateful to have been his mom. And his sacrifice will be remembered as the final string of attachment to my ex-life. Today life is changed. I feel cared for and regarded (from the French word to look) by a partner in crime. Simon left me in the company of his good friend Maximiliano, a beautiful man of 45 who sings and dances and who is teaching me to enjoy life.