Lord Nelson, The Gentle Best of the Citizen Six

I have been thinking about a cat lately. A specific cat. That seems weird to say given the circumstances, but I have been.

His name is Nelson.

Apparently, I have a certain attachment to him.

If you had asked me about him even a month ago, I wouldn't have been able to say that. I would have said I had a soft spot for him or that I liked him the most, maybe. He lives in a household with five other cats and is very much my favorite of the bunch. That much, I could have told you.

As for my feeling of attachment to him - realizing I had one - well, that’s been news to me…

My attachment to Nelson just snuck up on me much like a cat: it snuck up on me and then pounced all at once.

It started with a text message. Nelson is one of Valerie's cats. On New Year's Eve, she texted me to let me know Nelson was in poor health and had been rushed to the emergency vet. Thankfully, they were able to diagnose the problem and get it stabilized; and Nelson was back home in a couple of days.

Unfortunately, the underlying medical issues that had sent him to the emergency vet were of the kind that could be managed but not cured, and led to an outcome which could be forestalled but not prevented.

Nelson has a failing heart.

He is only 12 years old. That doesn’t seem particularly old as cats go. He seems young for heart problems, but what do I know? I have gone down many ADHD-fueled rabbit holes researching random and obscure topics in my lifetime. Feline cardiology, however, is not one of them. Thus, I have no idea whether 12 is or isn’t young for feline heart problems. It just seems young…

Regardless, Nelson’s heart is not in good health. With medication and a fairly rigid adherence to its provision, he has some time - though I have no idea how long. I imagine not long.

Learning all of this made me sad in the way that news related to the animals in our life usually does...

Watching a beloved pet get older and someday fall into declining health is just part of what comes with the package when we choose to bring animals into our hearts and homes. Our pets get older. Time takes its toll. Like all living things, eventually, they die. Losing them is sad and terrible and often heartbreaking. It is also just the order of things. We all know this…

A pet’s time in our life has a beginning and an ending. We all know that. We know it rationally. We just tend to forget until suddenly we can’t forget again.

At some point in our pets’ lives, there comes an inflection point. Something happens. Their health begins to fail… we see a sign of decline… we catch them in the light and suddenly see their age… and suddenly everything changes.

We suddenly realize they’re getting older and won't be with us forever, and then we look at them different… see them different… and suddenly feel acutely that life is so very finite even for a dog we remember as a puppy or a cat we’ve had since it was a kitten.

We spend the time we have with the animals in our lives loving them first as immortal knowing that they are not - and then loving them as mortal, knowing that they are.

The realization that they are mortal hurts. That's normal. We get attached. Love is love and loss is loss. Even when loss is only foreseeable, the prospect alone is enough to hurt. It changes things…

Hearing that Nelson is in failing health stung, and the sting has stuck with me, or has recurred, I suppose. It stings anew when I think about it.

The thing is, Nelson and I don't have the kind of history for that.

We don’t.

We have nowhere near the kind of history that would lead a grown-ass man to write a whole weepy essay about a cat. He isn’t even my cat. We’ve only even crossed paths a handful of times. In all but one of them, we barely even caught a glimpse of each other.

We really only even interacted once.

That was enough.

That was enough for me.

That one time.

I had a soft spot for him by the time it was over. I’ve had it ever since. Apparently it was more than a soft spot. It was an attachment. I just didn’t realize that until I got the message on New Year’s Eve.

I’m not sure if the backstory will make my attachment to Nelson make sense. You can be the judge…

Valerie has six cats and a dog. The dog, Luna, is a sweet old pup. She's just a gentle, docile, sweet old dog. She has a certain unbothered nonchalance despite being housemates with six cats. She’s like a college dorm RA who had an interest in the free room and no interest in policing the floor. She simply goes about her business indifferent to the doings of the six cats.

The cats coexist as more like a loose confederation connected only by proximity and circumstance not relationship. They're like people who live in the same apartment building but share little other than an occasional elevator.

The cats have their own personalities and varying degrees of warmth for strangers. Cats can take a while to warm up to someone. How long depends on the cat. A certain degree of standoffishness is more less the brand for the species. A dog will like you on potential. A cat will wait for proof. You only have to meet a dog. You have to befriend a cat.

When I first started making trips out to LA to see Valerie, I was determined to befriend all six of hers.

I joked about it with bravado as if it was an idle amusement, but I was determined. I was going to collect all six cats like it was a game of feline Pokemon Go. I was going to befriend them all. Valerie forewarned me that two of the cats ‘didn’t really like new people.’ That only made me more determined.

Oh, I was going to collect all six… and then I was going to gloat about it.

How hard could it be? You go sit in the same chair enough times, eventually some of the cats are going to come over to you. Dole out free pats and scratches like you’re the candy man, eventually word hits the streets… and in short order you're running what amounts to a cat barbershop. There's only a single chair. It gets busy on Saturdays. The cats line up for affection. Each gets a turn in the lap. Next thing you know you've collected all six Pokemon.

I didn't have a strategy, but if I did, it was more or less: Just pet them. <end of strategy>

And by the second or third visit, it was going swimmingly. I was already halfway home.

Batman, who's about the easiest nut to crack in the cat world, had already come around. That wasn't much of a feat. Batman operates as if affection is oxygen and humans are its only source. Walk in the door, Batman likes you already.

After Batman, came Henry and Bubba. Both were pretty quick to warm.

Three down, three to go.

Another visit or two later and Beau and Tigger had come around…

…and there I was on the precipice of an occasion of great gloating.

Five out of six cats collected.

Nelson was the lone holdout.

I already had a rough draft of some gloating remarks in my head. I was going to say something like “What has two thumbs and six cats?” and then point at myself with my thumbs and say “THIS GUY!” before erupting into the gloatiest of gloating laughter.

Collect Nelson, and it was ‘Gloa-time.’

The only rub there was that by that point I had still only caught even a glimpse of him once or twice. He had a habit of hiding himself away on a high shelf in one of two rooms and then pushing himself as far from the edge as he could so that you would have to both know he was there and climb a ladder to confirm that.

The first time I ever even got a look at him, I was sitting in the open kitchen that sits about halfway between Nelson's two preferred purchases. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash, and then bolting past was a cat who looked like he was running from cover to cover in war-torn Bosnia. He had his head down and tail down and was covering the space like there was sniper fire coming. In a flash, he was gone. That was it. That was all I saw of Nelson.

But from that one glimpse, I understood.

He was afraid. He was just straight petrified.

Cats and people are different obviously, but not entirely. Any sentient being capable of affection has a need for it. Animals capable of love require love. It’s that simple. Love has an evolutionary value. We are able to love because it is important to our survival that we do.

When an animal - be it cat or dog or human - shies away from the proximity and contact required to experience love, there's always a reason.

A fear that sends you running through a kitchen where other cats are waiting their turns for scratches and treats and lap time comes from a place. A specific place. It comes from somewhere early in life where the pure medicine of love is commingled with the poison of risk and pain. Mix those two opposites together and it is the pain and a resulting fear of it that overwhelms the love… the will to seek it; not the need for it.

I don't know the circumstances of Nelson's early life. I know he was a rescue. But something happened somewhere in his life to make the thing we need right along with food and shelter too scary to approach.

I just let Nelson be. Honestly, I forgot about the Pokemon Go until June when I was out in LA to go to the Emmy's with Valerie. She was nominated for two. I flew in for five or six days.

One the first few mornings, we got up and went to sit in her library with coffee. The library is a cozy little room with floor to ceiling bookcases on three sides and two comfortable chairs facing out over a view over the valley. It's a pretty place to sit in the morning. By then, she and I had made a habit of it.

The cats had made a habit of joining us. Invariably, some subset of the pack would follow us in and then others would straggle and divide themselves between us. We'd each have a cat on our lap and on our footrest. One of us would have one on an armrest. Five cats between us.

All but Nelson.

The sun would be coming up over the valley. The world would be quiet and peaceful. The five would take turns on laps and get ample attention.

And somewhere a million miles away and missing out, was Nelson.

The million miles was actually only about 15 feet.

Nelson would be in the room. You would just never know given where he was. The library was home to one of his two perches. A particular shelf about nine feet off the ground. The one at the very top of the ladder.

His five housemates would be getting attention and affection and Nelson would be pressed hard against the back wall of the bookcase so as to not even betray that he was there. If he could have made himself invisible, he would have, and for all intents and purposes he did.

I had a tendency to forget he was even there - and that particular morning, I had.

At one point, Valerie got up to make more coffee leaving me in the room by myself. I was on my phone absentmindedly doing the crossword with Batman next to me on the windowsill and Henry on the footrest.

And then, out of the corner of my eye, down at my feet brushing up against the hard corner of the chair was Nelson.

NELSON!

For a minute, I just stayed dead still thinking if I moved a muscle, he would sprint away.

Then I slowly reached over the armrest to scratch his back thinking the touch would spook him… but when I scratched his back, he didn't flinch. He just turned his head to look at me. I just looked back at him without moving still surprised to see him at my feet. And for a minute, we just stayed there like that. The two of us looking at each other.

Then he jumped up on my lap and that was that.

Eventually Valerie came back in the room. When she saw Nelson, her eyes went wide as dinner plates and then she looked at me and let out a surprised “Whoa! Nelson...”

I had done it.

The last Pokemon.

The hour of great gloating was upon us!

To be honest, I forgot all about it.

I was just happy Nelson was in my lap.

Being estranged from affection is a hard carry. It doesn't matter if you are a cat or a person. It is a heavy load. It is hard to do without love. It is harder still to be unloved because you are afraid of love. I can't imagine what it is like to feel that ache while also being terrified of trying to satisfy it.

At the end of the day, we're all just trying to find our way home. Not to a house. Not to four walls. A house is of service for what it keeps out; the elements, danger. A home is of service for what it keeps in: warmth, comfort, peace, love. We’re all just trying to get home. It's hard to be without one.

So, Nelson had come around… that one time at least… and I was so happy he did.

After that morning, I was only in L.A. for a few more days, but each morning as I sat in the library, Nelson would come down and sit on my lap.

The last day I was there, Valerie came walking into the library to find me in my usual chair, Nelson with me. Her eyes went wide again, she laughed and pulled out her phone.

[INSERT NELSON PIC]

The cat who hadn’t wanted to show a whisker…

The last pokemon. The best pokemon.

The gentle best of the citizen six.

I left the next day, and that was it. That was the extent of our real history. I haven't seen him since. It’s unlikely I will see him again before he passes.

My soft spot… my attachment to Nelson… it was from just that first morning and the next few.

That was just enough for me.

I think the reason is because I was happy for Nelson. When your relationship with love is complicated - when something that is supposed to only nourish is tainted by things that poison - it's hard. It is hard. Between a need and its fruition is a memory, an experience, a fear of another.

What might be no riskier than dipping a toe in the water feels like a cliff dive into a pool the size of a thimble. The risk is certain. The reward is only potential. The fear has a cost all its own.

It's a hard leap.

Sometimes it's easier to stay on the cliff - even if it's just a shelf…

…but there is a value in coming down.

There is a necessity no matter the outcome.

Keep taking that risk, at the end of one of them is somebody's arms.

Nelson was a sweet cat. He was just terrified. The distance between him and affection seemed like the height of a building when it was only the width of a carpet. It was just hard for him to take that leap. That can happen sometimes…

He was always the cat in the picture.

Nelson. The gentle best.

I thought I was fond to him.

Apparently I was attached.

[Postscript: I first drafted this a month ago. Nelson passed away on February 22^nd in Valerie’s arms. He was well loved by her and lived out his days in a loving home. He passed away peacefully and in the presence of comfort. At the end of the day, that is all that can be asked, I suppose.

I left the writing in the present tense because that was the appropriate tense when I first wrote it. Unfortunately, the proper tense for the references to Nelson are now in the past tense… and that just makes me sadder than a man should be about someone else’s cat maybe. I was just attached to Nelson. I just didn’t realize how much.]