✰✰✰ Patch ✰✰✰

?2005?-2021

Patch was a wonderful cat that I had known since she was born, and that spent many years being a dear companion and friend to me. i always felt we mirrored each other; that she was like my familiar. her passing changed my life drastically, but her life did as well, and she will always live on in me and in everyone else that knew her - she shone so brightly and brought out so much love in people. she was one of a kind and i hope learning about her will bring some happiness to you today.

about patch

Patch was black and white (with little flecks of white in the black patches), short haired, and had very pale green eyes. She would've been a small cat if she weren't so rotund. Her head looked too small for her body, just enough to be funny. Her facial features were like a weird old lady. Her chin was small, yet bulbous, and we often complimented her on her "grandma chin". One ear had its tip cut off, the other had a notched scar. She had exactly one tooth. the absolute most notable feature about her was her voice. she was Very vocal, a chatterbox who would respond to anything you said to her and, if she liked you, start purring the moment you entered the room - but her meow had the gravel of a chain smoking gas station waitress, bordering more on a bizarre bird call than a meow, and her purr sounded like flooding a car's engine and could get just as loud. she would get so Into purring that she would even backfire, coughing on how hard her vocal chords were working.

Patch was very laid back, an old soul from the start. The most she would ever play with anything would be going wide-eyed watching a string move, and perhaps lifting a paw in its direction, then putting it back down. But she was also a baby at heart; she preferred to spend as much time on a lap as possible, or in one of her other favorite person-related spots: under the computer chair inside a blanket, on your chest as you try to sleep, on your butt when you're trying to do yoga, or crawling into the neck of your sweater or into your sweatshirt pocket. I would often carry her around in the sweatshirt pocket. She loved it.

she was very oblivious, and yet I felt she understood me deeply. If I asked her to do something, she would do it, and if I sounded in distress while around her, she would climb onto me (all claws in clothing, no jumping) and start biting my face with her one tooth, some bizarre method of trying to bring me back that usually worked. but otherwise she was extremely chill. I could carry her around the house with me. oftentimes I would bring her with us to drive-throughs, where she laid in my lap (passenger seat). I would bring her outside with me to sit and enjoy some fresh air for a bit, and she would move Maybe a total of five feet. she loved to lay in the sun.

I'm not sure she hissed once in the time she lived with me, and not on the street. when she lived with decently sociable animals, she was lovey toward them. she never started fights, and always tried to make friends. she was really a very sweet girl.

history

There were a lot of stray cats in my dad's neighborhood. people would move away and just leave their cats. my dad and stepmom left out food for them sometimes. one of them we wound up calling Momma Kitty, because she was pregnant. she had siamese coloring, a bit diluted and dusty looking. I hated being at my dad's house so I would spend a lot of time sitting outside with the stray cats, including her. she gave birth in my dad's car port, and my dad took in the litter, named all but one after a winnie the pooh character, and adopted out all but one. for some reason i no longer remember, and neither did my dad before he died (but i think it's just because he didn't actually care that much), he just turned the last one out to be stray. that was patch.

Patch and her mom didn't get along, since they were now competing for food. but I loved them both a lot, and hung out with them. They didn't trust people much, but I won momma kitty's tentative trust, and Patch's wholehearted trust. My dad was shocked when he saw Patch sitting on my lap; she wouldn't let him touch her. I would spend so much time sitting and petting them that my hands would be black from the dirt when I came in. she felt like something of a guardian for me; my mom's first impressions of her was when she was pulling into the driveway to pick me up, and there was a weird, scrungly cat on the porch, staring at her with really light, creepy eyes.

A few years passed in this manner, and I was starting to register that it wasn't fair to just leave cats to live on the street. (Plus, Patch kept getting in silly little troubles - she'd waltz into my dad's cluttered garage and disappear for days until I was recruited to call her out; she'd repeatedly be caught in baited spay-and-release traps whenever my dad set them; and of course she kept attracting ire from her mom and other strays.) My mom already kept too many cats, so I'd never be able to swing adopting them both, but I eventually convinced her to let me adopt Patch.

My mom's house had a dog door, and she let all our pets free roam. There's inherent danger to this, of course, not to mention environmental impact. Losing pets was a fact of life attributed to cars and coyotes, and never to ourselves. (we also had an extensive wildlife graveyard I tended.) But generally a new pet will, at least, only learn to use the dog door by the time it's also learned this is its new home and it doesn't need to just straight up run off. But in the first few days after I brought Patch home, my brother's friend left the front door wide open, and she disappeared. I ran around the woods calling for her, I put up posters, I knocked at tons of nearby houses and handed out our phone number in case anyone saw her. One old woman in a backyard led me in a bewildering prayer for her safety, saying Jesus looks out for cats. But I guess it worked, lol. Three weeks after she disappeared, long after I'd given up, my mom happened to open the back door for some fresh air after refilling the cat food bowl, and when she turned around after cooking, Patch was there, eating. She never left again.

Patch was not very healthy, which will happen when you're born a stray. It was typically non-acute, formless unhealthiness, a lot like what I deal with, the stuff vets would never diagnose or treat, but just charge for and give vague advice. but a few years in to her being my cat, she started having trouble eating, because she was developing huge sores in her mouth and it was causing her too much pain. I got my mom to take her in to the vet, who told us she was having a major plaque allergy and needed her teeth pulled. my mom refused to pay the price for the teeth pulling, but offered to pay the slightly lower price of having her put down. at around fourteen I was asking for money online. I put together a fundraiser for her, got the $300, and they pulled all but one of her teeth. I don't know why they didn't pull that last one, but it never caused her further trouble. she could eat again. but she just had one funny little fang tooth for the rest of her life. I think this started around here, too - because of her mouth issues, and then later her flexibility issues, she stopped grooming herself. she would get very dirty and/or stinky, especially since she was pretty bad at going to the bathroom. so I kept her clean. I got her used to baths. I was gentle and took care of the silly little old lady. she wasn't into it, of course, but i soothed her as much as i could, and dealt with her claws. she was never too bad about it, just a bit grippy, and occasionally letting out the saddest, gravelliest meows you can imagine, audible from two rooms away. then I would dry her off as much as i could, and she, still pretty dang wet, would crawl onto me and make me wet as punishment. this continued forever. it was nice.

free roaming, as dangerous and irresponsible as it was, suited Patch, because she never went further than a few feet from the door, and just loved to sit on the porch in the sun whenever she could. or sleep on a pile of leaves, or in a nice little protected spot of grass in the middle of temporary fencing. I think the furthest she went outside the house after disappearing was once when I was picking blackberries, which you can do every year in washington state - wild, invasive blackberries are everywhere, growing in thickets up to eight feet high, so I could just walk down our long driveway in august and get enough for a pie and a smoothie. Patch decided to walk along with me, occasionally meowing (or "scroumping", a better descriptor we used for her noise) and showing her mood by flopping down into the dust and rubbing around in it. I have a picture of her covered in dirt from this, somewhere. there's not much else to mention about this period. the other cats didn't like patch, they got in fights with her on occasion. but Patch and I were good friends. this time is when she did most of her hanging out inside my clothing, or climbing on my face at night to sleep. I built a strong connection with her, and wanted to show her off to everyone I knew. this is my weird cat, listen to how she purrs. I fantasized about bringing her in to school with me, maybe some time toward the end of the run, before graduation. I didn't manage to clear this, people have allergies after all. but I'm convinced she would've been chill enough for it. occasionally when we'd get drive through fast food I'd bring her with, either to lay on my lap or on the seat next to me. she didn't care. she was fine if I was there.

when I graduated high school, my mom made the decision that we would move to Maine, because we couldn't afford to live in washington anymore. we drove cross-country in an RV with 3 people, 3 dogs, and 4 cats. we lived in that rv in an empty rv park in winter for a few months, while trying to find a house. those poor cats must've hated it far worse than we did. at least the dogs could be walked. once we got a house, Patch practically lived in my room. I don't have a memory of her being outside of it, except for once when she was laying in the middle of the bathroom doorway (inconvenient), and the fact that she must've occasionally left because the cat food was downstairs. she started throwing up a lot, though. not Immediate Intervention "a lot", but the kind of "a lot" for cats thats just like. maybe we should take you to the vet sometime. and we did, and it was the same as those visits before: "idk, maybe try expensive food". we could not afford that, or maybe we didn't care enough. my mom certainly didn't. but i cleaned up after her, and i took care of her best i could, and she lived sleeping in an open drawer of my stuffed animals, or on the pillow of my bed looking out the window, or underneath my computer chair inside my draped lap blanket. she was my only friend there, and she kept me company.

my mom ended up kicking me out for a health condition. she rescinded it a few hours later, but what's to be gained from staying with someone like that? I had an open offer to live with someone else i cared about, and I had very little for me here. I told my mom I'd be taking patch, and she said "well, yeah, I figured". I took Patch with me as a carry-on bag on a flight to WV. I was worried about what noises she might make during the flight, but she kept very calm and polite all through it. she was the last thing I had from home, and we took these journeys together.

the house in WV had a dog and three cats, all pretty sweet and well-behaved. it was another "open roaming" household, unfortunately, but at least they didn't have a dog door. patch was primarily supervised when she was let out to lay in the grass and the sun - and even sit on a riverbank. she loved the wooden porch, and seeing all the birds and squirrels. since I was now suddely in charge of almost all aspects of her life, I decided to do as much as I could for her health. I got her a checkup that didn't find anything wrong, so I did a lot of research as to why she was getting so consistently sick. I learned most housecats are chronically dehydrated, because they need to be getting moisture from their food, but they're just fed dry food that's also mostly filler ingredients they can be sensitive to. I started buying her (heavily quality-to-price checked) wet food with what I had saved up, and feeding her in my room, separate from the other animals. (this was a challenge, but luckily she couldn't jump or climb very well, so the other cats' free-eating dry food was kept high up. she often tried to eat the dog food, though.) her vomiting slowed, and stopped. I felt really grateful I could help her. I felt like she'd helped me a lot.

the other animals were not afraid of her, but were slightly wary, mostly just a bit awkward. she was new, and old, and weird. but over the months she kept getting closer to them, and eventually she'd be sneaking up behind the other cats and biting them on the neck, a friendly play behavior young cats do to each other. the other cats would be extremely confused about this, tolerant of it but extremely confused. I picture it like if an old woman (she's at least 12 at this point, she's Middle Aged at the youngest) who's never had any friends moved in with you, and liked you, and kept sneaking up behind you and going "TAG YOU'RE IT". they were bewildered by her, but they liked her too, and I'd see them laying together and grooming each other. it hurt my heart in a good way to see her having friends. I'm really glad she got that time in her life. I ended up having to leave her for a few months, but she had that time to stay with her friends and lay in the sun. and we got back together after it. (my girlfriend and i, during this period of separation from patch, would listen to a recording of her purring when we were sad. even she loved her that much, having known her for just a few years.)

then we moved to ohio, where she was the only pet. I'm a little sad she had to leave them, but we brought her back to visit sometimes, and she didn't seem to mind much anyway. we still had each other. and our new roommate adored her and babied her, despite being allergic to cats. she was the mascot of the house, and even people coming over who I'd never met before would ask to see her and be delighted to. she was much beloved by everyone. she was a very special kitty

in the time here, I got her a cat harness and leash, and we'd go on "walks". she barely moved outside of a harness, so it was usually just me picking her up and putting her outside, where she'd sit for a bit, smelling the air and turning to look at things. maybe eating some grass, maybe rubbing her face against a tree. she enjoyed it, and that's what matters. occasionally i wouldn't bother with the pretense of the harness and leash, and it'd be the exact same experience. she'd bolted once, she didn't like it, she was staying put. once on a road trip to visit her old friends, we let her out in the grass at a rest stop while we laid against a tree next to her. she laid down, contented. people walking by asked "?? is that your cat??" and we said "yeah, don't worry, she couldn't bolt if she wanted to". she was both eternally old in body, and eternally old in soul. she was chill all the way through.

other things around this time: I got her a little puzzle treat ball, and she couldn't figure it out even when I left the lid off. I decided to downgrade the puzzle enrichment and just put a treat (freeze dried chicken! good for her sensitivities) underneath a piece of paper. she couldn't figure that out either. from then on she just got treats. her fur pattern included a little black splotch coming from her lower lip, so all of us adopted the affectionate nickname "goop drooler". I made her a bed out of an old pair of my pajama pants and she loved it.

around the cusp of winter of 2020, her stomach was noticably swelled. we lovingly joked to her about her "basketball belly", but took her to the vet. this being the first year of covid, we waited in the car, and the vet came out to us, speaking gently but with concern. she said "Patch is very sick." the stomach swelling was due to fluid buildup, which is just a symptom of something without a fix, usually a late-stage cancer. she was very apologetic, and very vague, but alluding there was probably only one course of action in the near future. my girlfriend refused to believe it and gained a strong distrust for that vet, so we got a second opinion - the same thing, and a tactile confirmation of a tumor. there was the possibility of fighting it, something we were determined to do toward the beginning, but it was a narrow possibility, and every consecutive test made it narrower, especially as our budget tightened. there was only so far you could fight death. and she'd lived a good, long life.

she was having trouble getting around, certainly due to her condition and the symptom making her an awkward shape. I made her a little cardboard castle, warmed with blankets, that I set up right across from her food, water, and litterbox. she spent her last month or two there, laying inside. I'd put in a microwavable heat pack with her, and a little jiji plush from kiki's delivery service, and set up my laptop near the entrance playing videos of birds from washington. i didn't want the stress of a bath, so I cleaned her with hand wipes. she was eating less and less, so I'd make her meals an assortment of raw chicken, freeze dried chicken, catnip, and high calorie fish-flavored kitten protein paste. she loved that. we all spent a lot of time with her, brushing her, petting her, letting her sleep on our lap. I talked to her a lot. I told her how much she meant to me. she purred.

on January 13, 2021, we brought her in. our roommate almost came, but decided she couldn't handle it. we got permission to just carry patch in, we knew she wasn't going anywhere. we stuffed our masks with tissues. we set her down on a blanket from her bed, set jiji next to her, and the laptop a bit away with the bird videos. the vet came in and made an involuntary "aw..." at all of it. while they went in the back for the supplies we pet her and hugged her. i told her she was my best friend. she went out safe and loved. i gave her as much of that as i could. i still wish i could've done more.

We had her cremated, and weren't sure on what urn or general container we wanted, but she came back to us in a small, simple wooden box that felt very nice. A friend of our roommate, just one of the people who admired patch from afar, gifted me a memorial bracelet that I wore every day for months. It lives around the neck of jiji now when i'm not wearing it. I drew a few pictures of her in the next few days. After a week or so, I went out and bought black, white, and pink fleece. Over the course of a year I worked off and on to make a plush of her. It came out wonky, as I expected, and as I was fine with, because it's in line with her spirit. And her appearance. I was thinking about this idea to make a plush, or some sort of memorial item, before she died; I took a small cutting of her fur. It's in a little heart in the center of the plush. I have a lot of pieces of her still with me.

whenever i'm walking through a field, i'm thinking i should've brought her there. (my girlfriend says we could bring her ashes out sometime, just sit with them.) whenever i'm sad about anything else, i miss her. she used to be the thing that could help me feel better no matter what. sometimes i listen to a recording of her purr. sometimes i go through all the old pictures and videos. she was something special. there'll never be anything like her.

therapy and reflection has given me the perspective that i'm carrying on her legacy. she's a part of me now. I always joked that she was my familiar, a reflection of me. her history, her scars, her health, her weird voice, her odd behaviors, her funny teeth. it felt like we were two sides of a mirror. i always valued and adored those traits in her, and yet disliked them in me. i try now to consciously recognize that the "weird" traits, and being true to them, is what makes someone rich in personality and heart; it's what adds light and joy to the world. everyone loved patch because she was weird and sweet. i can be weird and sweet, too, and i can try to carry on what she brought to life.

Thank you, Patch. I love you.

gallery

	I made this bed for her out of my old pajama pants :) the fabric is now part of my favorite coat.	Patch spent most of her life being disliked by the other cats around her. Later on, living with my girlfriend's parents and their cats for around a year, she started this odd behavior of sneaking up behind them and vampire biting them on the neck. (remember: no teeth. mostly just annoying them). I asked a cat behavior forum about this and this was their response. She was being a silly affectionate sweetheart.
		Patch contorting around my pre-reduction tits lmao
	she really loved to crawl into my clothes.
		made by a friend on tumblr	made by my roommate, printed out and taped to her desk at work
a memorial plush. i worked on it on and off for a year after her death.
			that's O'Malley, one of her friends she would vampire bite, grooming her. :)
		once our roommate was rearranging the living room furniture, and a few minutes later heard patch squawking. in the amount of time that an opening between couch pieces was visible, she crawled in and got trapped.