RIP Arya, Bestest Sasquatch
I lost my cat Arya today. Her brother Sam and I were there with her when she went. She and I had just short of 17 years together. I wish we’d had so much longer.
I got her when she was about 8 or 9 months old. I was fostering cats for a shelter called St. Meow’s out of Somerville. She was beautiful, but curled up in the corner of the cage avoiding contact to the extent she could. I took her in as a foster placement, expecting that she wouldn’t stay long.
We didn’t bond at first. I was much closer to my other cat Goya at the time. She, meanwhile, preferred one of my friends. Meanwhile, I was too hands-on with her for a while, so she would scratch and bite me. Her giant furry paws also resulted in a lot of accidental stabs because she would slide and dig in her claws into my leg when I would put her on my lap. I named her Arya, after Arya Stark from Game of Thrones, because she would stick me with the pointy end(s).
Still, I fostered Arya until the adoption agency abruptly shut down. I called the shelter about what I should do with Arya, but no response. By then I’d had her for 9 months, though, and I wasn’t about to give up on her.
She was already getting attached. After a surgery, I came home and went to bed, only for Arya to come in and sit on the site of the surgery. It didn’t hurt, even if it wasn’t advisable. Later, when I once closed my door to work; she panicked so much she tore the carpet trying to get to me. However, I was very playful and sometimes roughhoused with her when she was younger. This sounds really weird, but at a certain point I had a dream that she could tell me that it made her uncomfortable, and I started being more careful with her after that.
She’s moved with me from Boston to Concord back to Boston to San Francisco/Portland back to Boston to Washington DC, back to Portland, to Albany NY, to Springfield MA, to Middletown CT, to Shrewsbury MA, and three and a half years ago to Woonsocket, RI, and always was great at travel aside for her brief airport escape. She’s consistently comforted one of my other cats, Sam, who hates moving. Once, in Middletown, I found Sam hiding in the washer/dryer closet, with Arya stacked directly on top of him. I strongly believe she was being a cat weighted blanket to calm him down.
We’ve been through some pretty scary stuff. She and I had to temporarily move to west coast for a summer the following year, immediately after Goya’s death. The TSA agents accidentally let Arya bolt into Boston Logan Airport. Thankfully someone found her and brought her back. Then a “friend” who we were stuck driving with from San Francisco to Portland threatened to drive Arya, my friend, and me into the ocean. It was a terrifying 13- or so hour roadtrip through the middle of nowhere, but she and I made it.
She loved her “uppies” where I cradled her until she’d tilt to the side just a bit to let me know when she wanted to go down. She also loved grooming my face with aggressive affection. She especially wanted to clean out my ears. Her favorite hobby was batting my yarn balls in every direction, creating webs of yarn throughout the room.
She had this two-tone trill sound to get my attention - “MMMROW-mrow!”
She remains Sasquatch Cat even now, with her giant floofy polydactyl paws. I gently squeezed one of her paws this morning as she went.
I love her so much. I wish we’d been closer earlier in her life, but I’m glad we bonded over time. I’m going to miss everything about her. I hope we see each other again somewhere good, and she can clean my face and get her uppies to her heart’s content.