Making peace with my cat dying is proving to be easier than making peace with him being dead.

Yesterday, I woke up and Dorian was gone. Today, I woke up and he's still not here, and it's almost as hard to deal with this. He wouldn't always be in bed or even in the same room when morning came, but as soon as he heard me stir even a little, I'd hear the jingle of his bell as he roused himself and then he'd come over and start cuddling, whether I was actually awake by my definition or not.

Last night, I took a stuffed otter off my bookshelf and put it on my pillows thinking it might help to have a furry whiskered face close to me when I slept. Today, while I was getting dressed and adjusting to the fact that this morning ritual that I found so exasperating and endearing was not going to be a part of my life anymore, I looked over and my glance fell on the stuffed animal, curled up right where Dorian would have been.

Yesterday I moved my computer desk into the bay of his bay windows, facing the middle one and between the other two. I rearranged a lot of things in my room yesterday, for a couple of reasons. I wanted to deal with things the litterboxes and his cardboard scratching things and other things before they became a big deal. I didn't want to wake up every morning and see them, or look up from my computer during my work days and look over at the window and be devastated that he wasn't there.

A lot of what I did yesterday was trying to pre-emptively protect myself from Suddenly He's Not There Syndrome. I'm not getting rid of or packing away everything that was his, but I need the room I spend my day in to be my office, not my office/his living room.

Yesterday, I was destroyed. Today, I clean. Tomorrow, I rebuild. Which isn't to say that I'll be done grieving, but that I'd rather be grieving and doing things than grieving and not.

Such plans.

The thing about Dorian's death is that everything about it is really exactly how I would have wanted it to be, given that it had to happen at all. He went to sleep on a favorite blanket, curled up with me, after hours of attention. By all indications the, last thing he knew of the world was that I was there with him and I loved him.

It's just that it happened so soon. He seemed so young, and we'd been here less than a year. I know he was technically a senior cat, at least as the cat food people reckon years, but he didn't even make it to the double digits. While I'm grateful that he was spared the pain and indignities that so many other cats suffer and that I was spared the choices that so many cat owners make... I wish he would have had more time. I wish we would have had more time.

The years that I was traveling and leaving him behind, I told myself that it would be a drop in the bucket in the long run. Three years of me ping-ponging back and forth... what, not even a fifth of his life, probably. I expected him to have at least twice that long to enjoy being king of the castle again, to have rooms full of windows to himself and the security of his own food and water and litter boxes, during which we would never be apart for months at a time. He got less than a year of that.

But this is the thing that I think I need to acknowledge: when I say -- when I feel -- that I wish I'd had more time with him, that isn't what I really mean. I'm dancing around the hard truth, which is that I wish I'd done more with the time that we had. I wish I'd done better by him. I'm thinking about all the times that I pushed him off my lap. I'm thinking about the times I shut him out of a room so I could get something done. I'm thinking about all the things I meant to do for him and meant to get for him and meant to make for him.

And I think this is important to acknowledge, not because it will accomplish anything to beat myself up over what I didn't do for a being who is now and forever free of all problems and beyond disappointment, need, anxiety, or resentment, to whatever extent he was ever capable of resentment.

But because as long as I don't acknowledge what I really mean I say "I wish I'd had more time," I am beating myself up. I'm pretending that I'm sad about fate instead of angry at myself, but it's still self-flagellation.

I could have done more for him than I did, but that's a statement that would always be true, no matter how much I did. Did I do enough? I don't know who's qualified to judge that, or what the criteria would be. If I had known the path my life would go, I'm not 100% sure I would have taken on the responsibility of a cat... but there is no way I can believe he would have been better off if I'd abandoned him, even to another loving home, when my life changed the way it did. And I am 100% sure that he was better off with me than he would have been if I hadn't taken him.

I said in my last newsletter that the real message of a memento mori should not be "Remember that you, too, will die." but "Remember that everything ends." Life is the ongoing process of running out of next times and maybes and laters. The longer we go running on plans that rely on a steady supply of these precious, exhaustible, and unpredictable resources, the more heartache, disappointment, and regret we set ourselves up for.

I had such plans for Dorian. I had so many ideas for ways to make his life here better, to make sure he was always entertained and always comfortable and always taken care of and always loved. And it's not that I didn't do any of them. Back in August, I set up a thing so I could play him audio and videos on the computer when I wasn't there. Just last week, I set up a platform by the windows that was big enough for us to sit together and watch the world. I only shared it with him once, but he enjoyed sprawling on it all by himself, too.

I tell myself I could have done that sooner, could have done it at any time... but as far as he knew when he went to bed the last time, it was there and it would always be there.

The point is that whatever else I could have done, I can't do anything more for him now. I am beyond helping him as he is beyond the need for help. If there is to be another cat in my life, I can do my best to learn, but that won't be for a while. While I'm no longer gone for months at a time, there is just too much travel in my foreseeable future.

But more generally, I can learn the lesson of his life and his death, which is to not take these things for granted, to not build castles from bricks of "maybe" and "some day" and "later".

You know why people accumulate so much old stuff in their life, so much stuff they haven't used for years or haven't ever used? It's not because we cling to the past, it's because we can't let go of the future... the alternate future, the could have been, the might have been, the should have been. The maybe could be.

Dorian died, and all I can think of is that I had such plans. All the heartache and confusion my absences caused, I was going to make it all up. If he'd just live to be 16, then he'd spend half his life here, perfectly happy and perfectly comfortable and better all the time. I had such plans... and then he died.

But it could be worse. I could have died, with my last thoughts being, "But I had such plans!" Not just for Dorian, but for everything. Plans for stories to write. Plans for books to finish. Plans for games to publish. Plans for industries to change. Plans for skills to acquire. Plans for friendships to reaffirm, ties to strengthen, relationships to improve.

Jack... I haven't always been the best girlfriend, but I have such plans. I have to focus on my work. After all, we could have decades together yet, and they'll be better, if I can just get more ahead. There will be time for us. I have such plans, Jack, I have such plans. I just need to get a bit more ahead with my writing, so I can make more money... oh, but I have such plans there, too. I'll finish this, and that, and I'll get back to this other thing, but first I have to do this other other thing, because I have plans, such plans, and there will be time for all of this later.

And of course, I've never really settled into my office here, or my bedroom, or anywhere else. Because there will be time for that later, and I've got to hit the ground running. I have such plans! I've got my computer set up, I can unpack the photos and put things up on the walls later. I still buy new things to put on the walls, of course, because of course I'm going to decorate. I have such plans for that, and anyway, there will be time for that later.

We don't always get to have things our way in this life. We rarely get to have anything completely our own way. But insofar as we're able, to the extent that we can, I feel we should live our lives such that if we have the chance to look back on it at the end, we think, "I had such friends." or "I had such love." or "We had such a good time."... anything but "I had such plans."'

Dorian, I miss you. The choices I made meant that I often missed you when you were alive, and I know you missed me when I wasn't around.

But you had such love, and we had such a good time.