Month of Joy: On Joy, Sorrow, and Cats by Beth Cato

We know joy in contrast to sorrow, and my past two months have been a blur of sorrow. My sweet cat Porom succumbed to kidney failure in late October after blessing us with over 17 years of purrs. Yes, she was named for the character from Final Fantasy IV. Her twin brother Palom died from cancer in 2012.

For the first time since I was seven, I have no cats.

But I am here to celebrate Porom, and to look at January 2018 as a month where I will find new joy. I am adopting new cats. I write these words in December, and truth be told, I have never felt so impatient for the holidays to be over. I want January. I want new furballs to love and cherish for decades to come.

In the meantime, when I meet my daily writing goals, I get to reward myself with visits to local cat shelter websites. I stare at the pictures there and imagine what the cats’ personalities are like, and I am filled with a deep and desperate longing. I know the space beneath my desk will never be filled as Porom filled it, but I hope my new cats will keep me company as I write. I hope they love their new home, because I am so very ready to love them.

Porom

(an original poem written for Skiffy and Fanty)

by Beth Cato

joy in the memory

of her raspy tongue

tickling my toes

two white-socked paws

bracing my foot

as I try to write

an oh-so-serious scene

her warm furry body

presses against my sole

my soul

her purr vibrates

through my bones

and deeper

deeper

its reverberations continue

to quake through me

though the space

beneath my desk

is empty

but I forget that sometimes

I want to forget

I stretch out in my chair

to seek her

in the shadowed recesses

my toes desperate

to know that vigorous tongue

that once distracted me

annoyed me

but now

my feet forever unclean

and cold

Nebula-nominated Beth Cato is the author of the Clockwork Dagger duology and the new Blood of Earth Trilogy from Harper Voyager. Her newest novel is CALL OF FIRE. She’s a Hanford, California native transplanted to the Arizona desert, where she lives with her husband and son.

Website: BethCato.com http://www.bethcato.com/