Goodnight Gorda

Iphone Jan. 2015 103

Here’s some fun Gorda facts:

When I met her at the Humane Society, her name was “Bunny.” They found her in a barn and she was a mother to a single kitten, who they named “Bugs.” It was a very shitty name.
It took me almost two years to come up with a different name because I am both extremely uncreative and incredibly self-conscious about making decisions that are permanent.
The Humane Society almost prevented me from adopting her due to my living situation, but a nice lady who worked there changed her mind when they saw the way I snuggled with her and also maybe was swayed by the fact that I almost started crying when they told me I couldn’t have her.
The name Gorda was derived from watching “The Motorcycle Diaries,” which is a movie in Spanish about a young Che Guevara. At one point, Che calls his chubby friend “fatty.” I asked the person who I was watching the movie with to tell me what word he used, and it was “Gordo.” And so Gorda’s gender-appropriate and totally not fat-shaming name was born.
Back when I was in my early 20s and she was not geriatric, I was able to leave her alone in my apartment for several days at a time with a pile of dry food and a big bowl of water. I also left a window open so that she could wander in and out as she pleased. After I returned from one of those trips, a neighbor told me that he had been awakened in the middle of the night to something large and furry in his bed. As it turns out, Gorda had been so snuggle-deprived in my absence that she had crawled through one of his open windows, found his bedroom, and crawled into bed with him. She was not taking no for an answer.
As we all know, cat years progress much faster than human years, and I am actually able to pinpoint the exact moment that Gorda surpassed me in age. When I was living in that same apartment and still young and dumb, I came home late at night, coming down from a particularly intense mushroom trip. Immediately when I came downstairs, I could tell that Gorda was upset with me. She glowered down on me from her perch on top of the couch, judging me. It’s as if she was saying “I know what you’ve done, Stephen. How dare you take illicit drugs and then return to my home.” From that point forward, she became “Gorda the wise,” and she became my caretaker.
The Humane Society informed me in no uncertain terms that Gorda was not fond of other cats, and that was very true. But one day, my landlady (who lived above me) came home with a very sweet and tiny kitten, and we thought that maybe introducing her to Gorda would re-ignite some kind of motherly instinct inside of her soul. We placed them in front of each other, and Gorda sniffed the kitten twice before winding up with her right paw and smacking that adorable kitten as hard as she could three times. She fucked that kitten up.
Despite her hatred of cats of all sizes, Gorda had a particular affection for dogs. She never met one that she didn’t want to snuggle.
Over her last few years, her name became less apt as she lost more and more weight. My friend Sean came to visit from Billings a little while back and informed me that her new name should be “Emaciata.” He does not speak Spanish.
Whenever my nephews and niece came over, Gorda would go into hiding – either in a kitchen cupboard or in the basement. We were worried that she would do the same when we brought Simon home – but the opposite occured. Because we spent so much extra time sitting, lying down, in bed, or otherwise snuggling with Simon, she had a captive audience. And she never turned down an opportunity to join the snuggle pile, even as Simon started beating the shit out of her on a regular basis. If meeting a kitten didn’t reignite a motherly instinct, I think being around a human child did – she was always so gentle with him, even when he didn’t return the favor.
Gorda’s last week involved lots of ground raw chicken, extra snuggles, and plenty of tormenting from Simon, which she continued to tolerate. Her last moments were spent in full snuggle mode, and she’s now taken up permanent residence in one of her favorite spots in the backyard under our big Dogwood tree.

I wasn’t going to write anything else – I was mostly just planning on posting pictures. But it’s worth saying that getting a cat was both one of the dumbest and one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I didn’t think it through. I didn’t imagine it would be a 13 year commitment. I didn’t foresee how hard it would be to move around from place to place with a furry friend who viewed her litterbox as a more of a bullseye than a dartboard. Had I been able to see those things, I never would have taken her in. But it was so, absolutely, completely worth it that none of that stuff ended up mattering. 21 year-old me was an idiot, but that idiocy led me to one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And now, with Gorda gone, I’m that much farther away from being that kid who would make a decision like that. A decision that was 100% based on what’s in his heart with absolutely no practical considerations involved. Thinking about that kid, I’m shocked at how careless he was but amazed at how that carelessness didn’t always lead him in the wrong direction. I kind of miss him.

0224071300b