More Thoughts to Sunny's End

I don't like writing the word 'end.' Maybe people are right and death is just a new beginning, but to me, for now, the still very live adorer of this very adoring cat whose life has now ended, what other word can I use?



Sunny was my baby. He was a son, a buddy and a little brother. He followed at my heels, he slept tucked under with me as a kitten and as an adult he guarded me against my many fears as he lay across my legs, or beside my pillow. Without Sunny, I may never of gotten past my obsession of sleeping like a turtle, tucked in so tightly under my blankets that all I had for breathing was a tiny air hole that I so fearfully created, or my other obsession with sleeping with my legs firmly and tightly crossed, or bound up under my belly. Sunny guarded me. He watched. I guarded him back. Me and my mom are as scary as attack dogs to any cat that isn't ours in our neighbourhoods, chasing them off our property and our cat's territory with a vim. We don't want our kitties to be bothered when they're outside in their own yard. For this, our outdoor kitties just trusted us more and a symbiotic exchange of their love and mouse keeping-away services for food, pets and protection was made.




But Sunny's gone now like Mamma Kitty's gone and only Smokey is left now. She has now outlived her mother and her two-years-younger little brother. I can only hope that the crazy little fiend of a cat has at least five more years in those beautiful ticked tabby spots of hers, because I'm getting tired of losing my babies.



I'll never obsessively photograph Sunny again. I'll never follow him or be followed by him. I'll never feed him, asking for his adorable meows or give him any more treats of cheese. I'll never hug him or pick him up even though he doesn't like that, or scratch him under his collar, or see his head tilt up as I give his chin a good rubbing, or see the loose white hairs fall away from his blaze as I dutifully scratch it. Nor will I rub his soft ears, touching the backs where it always felt like there was still kitten fur there and massaging the faded tattooed skin of his inner ear between my fingers, admiring his ear knicks, wondering how he got him. Sunny will get no more scratches from other felines. He'll climb no more trees, nor will he walk up as we're sitting on the couch and look up at us, hoping for help lifting himself up. In his last few years, he got lazy about jumping up on things, but if you left him, he went up on his own. I'll never admire his sweet paws again, rubbing my fingers through his soft, soft toes, looking at his claws.



Never will I kiss his gentle orange and white head again.



It's really hard thinking that last Christmas he was big, plush and healthy, being funny playing in the snow, roaming around. When I saw him last, that last, horrible time after his stroke, he was still big, but everything about his manner was wrong and his back bone stuck out over his hips as it never before had. Poor Sunny. I wish I could have kept you from dying. I love you buddy. Sleep on...



I made stupid mistakes towards Sunny's last years and end, yet this has made me value life more and the other people I love I think. Yesterday, I thought of something to give Smokey, the cat who doesn't like anything. I'm trying to think of something to give my Dad, to thank him for caring for my baby when I wasn't there and I already have something for my Mom. She's easy. Dad and Smokey aren't. I'm even trying to think of something for my brother too, as impossible as that is for he has seemingly everything material that he wants.



The strangest thing about Sunny's death is that I think I knew about it a day before it happened. The night of the 18th I had a dream of a litter of grey tabby kittens, one of them extra spotted, then a tabby who looked like Smokey, only bigger and haler with a more pronounced mustache, looking like one of her littermates, looking up at me with her green eyes. I thought impossible, that looks like one of Smokey's siblings! The thing about Smokey, is that she's got a very distinct pelt pattern. Smokey and her siblings were all part Egyptian Mau which is obvious in their green eyes, their character, their love of dashing around (Egyptian Maus are the fastest domestic kitties and are believed to be the first ancient breed) and their fur is spotted, just like a mau, only with Smokey, her fur is also ticked. The cat in my dream looked like her, but it had differences in its markings and it was bigger, so it definitely wasn't her. My mom believes that it was probably Whiskey, Smokey's sister who passed away at only about six weeks old, who we buried among the violets in the shadow of Mount Rose.



No matter which of Mamma Kitty's other babies it was, though it strikes me as pretty given that it would be Whiskey, the cat's expression as it looked up at me was incredibly direct in my dream. It was unmoving, just looking at me, an adult cat trying to tell me something important with its stare.

That day, I remember that had an uncanny thought; Sunny could die today. Accompanying that thought, was a knife edge certainty that it could indeed happen, but then I thought No, not on the eighteenth. Not on the anniversary of my birthday. I don't want to see this day in a bad light.



Fate listened and Sunny passed away on the Nineteenth, at 3:50 pm instead. He was euthanized and from what my parents say, he seemed grateful to be going to his end because he purred the whole way, louder than since he had as a baby. It's weird though, those thoughts I had the day before. I wonder if Sunny was somehow communicating with me, or if it was Whiskey, the spirit that had come to help him him or something else. I don't really believe in a god you see. I believe in spirits and the Law of Attraction and the afterlife and reincarnation, but I don't really believe in God. I believe in spirits because the world has given me strong evidence that they exist and that they have a sway on things. That's how I know that my dominant spirit guide Wolf the arctic wolf exists and that Mamma Kitty's still here, protecting us, still being our kitty if only as an invisible one. A loving presence. I believe also, since long ago, that Sunny is another of my spirit guides. I guess now he's just gone to guard over my life in another way. I will miss his love dearly, but maybe it still exists?



Maybe he also heard what I couldn't bare to say, that last time I spoke to him over the phone, the words my mother told me to say; it's okay to die Sunny. Mommy loves you. I guess it doesn't matter whether I thought that or whispered it to his ears while laying next to him on the floor. He's passed away now and what's done is done and if that was Whiskey coming to get him, I'm grateful to her. Thank you Whiskey, for helping him.

I mourn and mourn. My mother says that I will miss Sunny forever and she is right. There is no other cat in the world like Sunny, nor will there ever be. He was an individual and like an individual flower, once he's gone, he's gone, never to bloom in his magnificence again, at least in this life. On the mornings of the Eighteenth and the Nineteenth Copernicus had the bizarre compulsion to lay on top of my legs like Sunny had once done and maybe, maybe that was Sunny acting through him, telling me that it was alright. Copernicus hasn't done it since, but he lays closer to my legs now, as he never had before. Maybe Sunny told him to. I hope so. I miss him. Copernicus will never be like Sunny, because he is a brat and a biter and not a saint like Sunny is, but he's still a kitten yet... maybe in time he'll earn his own title, as I have given my other cats. Mamma Kitty the Dowager Warrior Queen. Saint Sunny the monk in a past life. Smokey the Princess, now a Queen. What's Copernicus now, the rebellious squire?

Sunny's entire life passed within mine. In some small ways when the grief is the worst I wish I had died with him, but I still have a long life to live. I still have stuff to do and things to see. He'll be waiting for me on the other side with Wolf, Whiskey and Mamma Kitty. By the time I die, will there be a gaggle of cats? Will there be some dogs? Will there be any horses or other things? I still have a life to live. I still have more love to give and to receive.

It just pains me that now Sunny's to be left behind, in the recesses of my life. From the time I was nine to now at twenty-one, I have never stopped loving him... and I never will.

I have to go home soon to the Okanagan to get closure because this nightmare won't be completely real until I wander a house that is empty of my Sunny. When I sit down on the couch, no Sunny will appear wanting a lap, looking up at me with love in his eyes. No Sunny will lay curled there, reaching out to Mom beside me with his paw. No Sunny will sit on my lap as we watch television or play video games or watch animation. No Sunny. No Sunny meowing for cheese in the kitchen. No Sunny on his mat, purring. No Sunny following. No Sunny greeting. No Sunny.

But when I grow old and crotchety, when time has grown still and when all my stories have been told, I will see Sunny. I will feel his tail wrap around my ankle once more and I will feel the shed of his soft fur. Once again orange will grace my clothes... or fur as the case might be.

I can be happy at least knowing that Sunny is waiting and that makes death a little less scary now because he's waiting for me.



Rest in peace buddy. I will always keep your memory curled around my heart.






Back when I had visited in July. I was so hopeful; Sunny had been acting a little like himself here and there. For me, he was trying.I wish I hadn't left him; maybe he would still be alive.





My last sight of him...



It will never be enough that I went to see him in July, because I know, given by how he behaved when I was there, that if I had stayed, he would be alive, perhaps improving by leaps and bounds by now. He would be sitting on my lap right now, purring up a storm, or just hanging out preciously beside me. He wouldn't be dead. He would be alive and his kitty hair would be gloriously all over the place. It's my mistake. I'm sorry Sunny...

Sunny & Me & the Okanagan Valley

To those who don't see the full picture, who only see activities and things like shopping and hanging out, any place can seem boring. To the young people of the Interior of British Columbia, their small towns are often described as boring and dull, with nothing to do as they dream of the city.



Sunny and I grew up in the Okanagan Valley and we had no need for any of that. We saw the valley in all its splendour from high on the mountains and low in the hills. Sunny saw the land from the lush of the grass and from the long shadows of the trees. Both of us lived and loved there and every single time I leave the Okanagan, I am tortured by my leaving. It's where my family is, where my cats are and where my spirit resides. When I am away from it, my soul cries and cries for the Okanagan, where all is quiet, all is peaceful. The Okanagan wasn't where I was born, though it was where Sunny was born, but I may as well have been born there too, because it's there, that the big bang of my imagination happened and where my spirit ran free. The Okanagan was and always will be our inspiration and though Sunny's no longer there except in spirit, I know that he loved that land too. It was his home and is. He never left it and he never will. To take Sunny from that land would be a crime and I know that when next I go there, my spirit will cry in earnest for his, for he will no longer physically be there.



The Okanagan Valley is like no other place on Earth. One can say that about just about any place though, for no two feet of dirt are alike, so I will say this; in no place in the world that I know of can you travel thirty kilometres and go from lush green forests edging lakes, to green farmlands roamed by beautiful horses to a semi desert where the hills flare up with yellow balsam root flowers in the summer and where if you're not careful, you'll step on a prickly pear cactis. Everything is surrounded by soft old mountains and cliffs kissed orange by the sunrise and in the valley bottom there is a troop of lakes, one after the other, one by one. There's Okanagan, grey and long busy, home to the mighty Ogopogo who once ate people crossing the lake in legends. There's Kalamalka, a lake National Geographic rated as being one of the world's most beautiful lakes in the world and it deserves that title, for Kalamalka's colouring is always forever changing, for in its waters are the properties of a crystal prism. There's also Swan Lake and Wood Lake and Gardam Lake and Skaha and Osoyoos. All of them are beautiful.



The lake that me and Sunny grew by and where Sunny tried so hard to hunt the mallard ducks at was Okanagan Lake. I lived in terror of those waters as a child, not particularly because of Ogopogo (though he scared me too and still does) but because I just didn't like water and I thought that octopi lived there and that there were crabs to pinch my feet. (I will never swim in the ocean!) My mother told me that when I was a baby, every time they tried to put me in the water, I would scream bloody murder, so the general consensus has become that in some past life, I drowned, because I still don't like water. If I'm in a canoe, I have to paddle close to shore where the water isn't so deep and I will not put my feet anywhere near reeds or water grass. I think Sunny was the same, though he was a cat, so like me, he possessed a sensible distrust of water. One time, when he was young we tried to take him out and he leaped out of the canoe before we had cleared very far past the shore, swimming back as fast as he could. We never made him do that again; some cats may like water, but not mine.



It's hard to think about the Lake Lot now. So much of my memories there in that sacred place were spent with him, my Sunnels, now passed. It's been two days since he died now. Two days. Over fifty four hours since he passed away. I can't stand thinking of that. Thinking of the lake, I remember him striding through the green grass, his orange and white fur bright against the flora, beautiful eyes and knicked ears keen. Whenever we were cooking, whenever we had a fire the cats would hang out with us, never getting too close, but sitting or prowling nearby, a part of the moment.



As dusk drew, we would hear humming birds and then we would see the daily cloud of swallows, reeling and diving like fighter jets after the bugs. There's less of those now than when I was a kid. There may be less humming birds too and for both species, that's a great tragedy. Darkness would fall and out from the black forest mountain behind our house would come the bats, flicking flashes of coal in the shadowy light, chasing the insects that the swallows had chased while at the fire we drew letters in the air with glowing poker stick points, making smoke trails. Out of the night there would be a flash of white and that would be Mamma Kitty, leaping at the bats. She was seldom successful, but that's not to say that she never was. Mamma Kitty was a champion of mousers and bats were in particular probably of some annoyance to her, flickering about above her head, challenging prey that dared her, mocked her. Mamma Kitty got her revenge though. Like a wild African Serval she would spring up in a flash of her markings, claws clapping together, tail waving wide and any bat who hadn't heard her jump, if it caught between her fatal paws, it was doomed. Mamma Kitty was a spectacular mousing cat.



Sunny's prey, were the ducks. Sunny always dreamed of catching a duck. From his observations of how they came close for bread when we were feeding them (note; bread actually isn't very good for ducks, but these ducks were also feeding on proper duck things at the same time, unlike ducks at your typical city park) the ducks seemed pretty stupid. The only problem was, was that they were in water and he wanted them to be on land. Ducks do go on land though, waddling up to nibble at the grass, so I think Sunny was pretty hopeful that one day he'd catch one unawares. Most of the time though the ducks would see him and they didn't seem too impressed by his chirping bird call, gliding infuriatingly away through the placid water as he stalked across the rock dock. As they left they would straighten and I do think he would breath a sigh then, frustrated by their bloody wariness as they paddled off, quaking about him, oft times a mama duck telling her flotilla of babies to be careful about him.



Smokey and Mamma Kitty were never really tempted by the ducks like Sunny was. Smokey only wanted to catch shrews or robins (my mom cursed her to stop killing all the robins though they seemed in plentiful enough supply) and Mamma Kitty wanted bats - or humming birds - or other birds, or really, anything. The uber hunter wanted to eat something tastier than kibble and to give us something to show her endearing regard. She ate most of her kills, as did Smokey, dragging them into the yard then munching them on the lawn, but sometimes our huntresses didn't eat their prey, leaving them in front of our doors to impress us. I think the gifts were usually shrews. Maybe shrews taste good?



What tasted good to me, were hot dogs, crisped until black so that they have some flavour. To those who don't know, veggie wieners aren't high in the taste department. They're pretty boring, but they taste pretty good if they're charred a bit, at least in my opinion. Something about cooking them in fire makes them taste a thousand times better, especially served on a piece of local bread drizzled with ketchup, relish, mustard and mayo if we were lucky. That, combined with my mom's potato salad and iced tea, followed up by copious sweet marshmallows (also better over a fire) makes for one of the best weinie roasts ever. Marshmallows are also fun because occasionally they become torches, whether you're trying to flame them or not. They're very combustable. (Also, if you put them in the microwave they grow to like five times their size. I know because me and my brothers conducted several experiments on this when our parents were out. We also once made something we called 'astronaut food' which was a blended much of hot dog, bread, mustard, ketchup and relish. Yep. It was nasty looking. I didn't try it.)



Like the cats, we ran barefoot at the lake lot, dashing through cool grass in not much besides our swim suits, leaping through the rain, dancing cautiously around the dry spot in the lawn where the spiny horse chestnuts fell. I don't believe the cats ever stepped there either. Cats are too smart. We climbed the trees; my brothers built forts. We went on the roof of our cabin and looked out over our territory. We chased the cats in games of Endangered Species where they played cheetahs that we as biologists were trying to catch with tranquilizer darts (water guns) and made mazes out of two-by-four blocks of driftwood, once putting Smokey in one of those. The mazes were epic. It's too bad that there's no pictures of those.




In the garden Mamma Kitty liked to lie under the tomatoes on the hot black Earth and soak up the sun while Sunny preferred the cherry tree, where he could lay in the shade in cool peace. I saw him pant a few times. My dad made the cats a big automatic feeder thing out of a big metal stove pipe and the bottom of a plastic vegetable oil bucket, which we kept full of kibble for them and they drank water from the lake shore, crouching at its grassy edge. In the day, you could always hear the boats and seadoos going NEA-NEA-NEA-nea-nea... At night all there was was quiet and our childish conversations and the occasional terrifying bark of our mother telling us to go to sleep as the cats all slept with us in the trailer.



The Okanagan is home to me and my cats. It's where I first dreamed of giggoos and roleplayed falcolfs playing in the lake mud and where I told many of my first stories. Rimer was born there as Sunny was and Smokey and Mamma Kitty were too and it will always remain a source of great inspiration to me, from the Lake Lot where my family all found their peace and where me and my brothers learned the wildness that all kids should learn, to the dusty hiking trails that bake under the sun where as a kid I followed and where now I so often lead. Hiking drives my blood up like nothing else and the Okanagan does too, because it is home and it is familiar. I love the Okanagan like a family member and this year, I was grateful when it didn't torch. This year, my homeland got a break from the recent string of yearly firestorms that have plagued it. Maybe the sunspots and flares which chase away the needed rain have calmed down for a while; I would welcome that. I think we all would welcome that, here in the Okanagan.



For me, I will remember running in the rain unjacketed and hiding under my parent's sofa bed with Sunny and Smokey and Mamma Kitty in the thunderstorms. I will remember Sunny cutely chatter chirping at the ducks and Mamma Kitty hunting, bringing back mice. I will remember the bottle caps stuck in the dirt road and riding my bike the five kilometres out to the general store for candy under a hot summer sun and I will remember Smokey, playing with her prey, flipping them into the air.



I love my home. It won't be the same without Sunny there, but it will still be home and when I go there, maybe, maybe he will come to me and if only just in dreams, we'll be together again.

Rest in peace buddy.





Photography by Rosanna P. Brost and Bryan B. Brost.

I Want Somebody to Love

A few weeks back (or maybe less) I discovered something interesting about myself which I think makes me feel a lot more self value for myself. Thinking back to the days where I was with my parents still, I was always with my Mom and the times I valued most were the quiet times like when we were sitting watching TV together on the couch or on a mission grocery shopping. I was fanatically loyal to my mother and I still deeply love her, so it was thinking on this, in a point of loneliness now, that I discovered something key about what I want from life.

I don't really care if anyone loves me. I don't. I can say that with full honesty and I honestly do get surprised when people say they care about me. "Why?" I wonder. It's not that I hate myself or anything - it's that I'm an introvert and I live with an inwards turned mentality, so while I'm damn rough with myself, I do love myself too. Thus, I honestly do not care if people say they love me or not. Frankly, it might freak me out if anyone said they did. What I want from life, is not for somebody to love me, but for ME to have somebody to love and pour my love into. Somebody who I can hug ambush when they come in the door, who doesn't mind me snuggling up beside them like a dog while they play video games. Somebody who takes care of me when I'm sick and who I can take care of when they are sick. Somebody who I can share things with like food and have experiances with. I want a life partner, a pack mate. I just want somebody to love.

I think the fact that I don't dress nicely 'like a girl' actually says a lot about how much I value my own soul. I don't want people to like me because I look nice. I would rather not have a man stare at my breasts, thank you very much. He can go to hell if he does. I want people to value me for my spirit and love me for my mind - nothing else. (Well maybe if they notice I dressed differently one day I don't mind that or if they noticed a change in my hair, that's fine.) If I catch somebody staring at my ass, I will slap them across the face. I value who I am - NOT what I look like. That's self worth. Looking nice is a survival mechanism yes, and a powerful one, but I don't give a crap about it. I don't want any people nagging me about this or ranting at me about why I should care. No. I'm a human with the wild soul of a wolf. If I like you, you know it without knowing what I look like. Hell, I don't even know what I look like most of the time! I don't pay attention! But seriously, don't look at my boobs. Just don't. And don't call me shapeless or flat chested either, even in teasing. I'm the only person who is allowed to judge my anatomy. Period. If I say I'm scrawny (which I frequently do, quite proudly) you're allowed to call me scrawny, but don't call me anything that I haven't first called myself. I'm proud alright? Being poor has made me this way - and I'm proud of that!

For the record, I do think I have a nice body, it's just not on the top of my priorities list - never has been and never will. (This gets to be a problem sometimes when it comes to health, but I am doing better these days with that....)

I want somebody to love, who might love me and we can have a dog together, go on awesome road trips and go hiking all the time.

(I fucking want a huge dog. German shepherd or husky. I don't want another cat. I want a DOG! Copernicus' next sibling will be a DOG! I am hopeful!)