On saying goodbye
I met Jonah nearly a year after my heart broke for the very first time.
It was the first I’d ever truly been in love. The biggest heartbreak I’d ever had, up till that point. I returned to Southern Illinois in the summer of 2002 a shell of who I’d been. That year is a blur, a lot of things happened for me after that loss. I got on as a photographer for the student-run daily paper, the Daily Egyptian. I was making friends left and right and the ones I had were there, consistently making sure I kept moving forward. My friend Andy would walk me to classes and I am pretty sure he just hung out until I began to act human again.
Once the fog cleared, it was summer again and we were going home for break. My roommates and I had been talking about how we wanted to get a cat for the rest of our time together in the townhouse. I lived with my best friend, Kelly and three other girls Laura, Elizabeth and Stephanie. Stephanie moved in later that junior year, but even as a newbie she wanted a cat in our home.
Kelly and I returned home that summer determined to be the ones who brought back our cat. We didn’t do much leg work, we didn't even have to. Several families had been moving out of the neighborhood my cousin, Graham, lived in. One night while a group of us were watching movies, this figure appears at the screen door. My cousin proceeds to tell us this grey cat had been trying to get in — as if on cue grey cat launched himself at the screen door. He hung there like the cartoon cat Garfield for as long as he could. I was returning to Carbondale to get back to work for the DE in a few days, and this cat was coming with me.
When it came time to drive down I went to my cousin’s house around 11 in the morning. I waited. I waited. And I sat there alone on their front porch looking for him.
I was still waiting at five when my aunt got home. She helped me look for “Grey Kitty,” who she even had written a song about. I was trying to tell myself the fact he wasn’t around wasn’t a sign and that I needed to just wait till he got there, even though I needed to report back to work the next day. My aunt and I looked all over the neighborhood and found him across the street asleep on a cushioned porch seat around 6. The neighbors said they were glad I was there as they were bringing him to the Humane Society the next day.
Not on my watch lady. Not on my watch.
As Grey Kitty and I sped back that evening, open roads and loud music on the stereo he rode co-pilot for the 3.5-hour drive to our home in Carbondale. I named him Jonah in that car on that trip. He had disagreed with some of my music choices by hollering at me until I put on One Line Drawing. Lead singer, Jonah Matranga, crooned with his R2D2 robot; Jonah chilled in the passenger seat, only sitting up to get a cold blast of AC in his face. I found love again, and though my heart was still broken, the cracks were slowly sealing every time I looked at this adorable grey kitten.
The second we got home I knew this was one of the best decisions I had ever made. I hadn’t had a cat companion that was truly mine since I was little. When I was born a cat we named Midnight already was living outside our house. My family adopted her, and when I came along she adopted me. Jonah was the house cat, but he was my best friend and became one of my soulmates.
Everyone loved him. Every single person who ever met him fell in love. Even those with allergies would love him because he had so much love and chill to give. Vets and vet-techs threatened to steal him from me. One tech said she wished she was a cat in my house, we took it as a supreme compliment. This grey cat, Jonah, taught me to approach things with happiness. That coming at something rough with a rotten attitude serves nothing or no one. Maintaining a sense of calm kindness was how Jonah lived his life.
Jonah came with me everywhere that first year it was just us. He rode along with me like a dog in the car, came to the newsroom and partied with us when we had people over. He adopted his brother Sinatra the next year. When the girls graduated and I stayed for Grad school we lived in a periwinkle-colored house on West Main with my cousin, and subsequently my best friend Dan. We adopted another brother, Mr. B, to the cat-pack in 2006 and a big ole’ dog, Willa, in 2007. My giant family of animals and I moved to St. Louis in 2008 to live with our friend Mark. We worked our way back north later that year as I took a photojournalism position with a family paper in North-Central Illinois. We lived in Peru Illinois till 2016. Jonah loved my long-term partner, Matt, at the time and we were a happy little family for quite a long while.
In 2014 a lot of bad stuff happened. Multiple losses including my relationship with Matt, several deaths including one of my very best friends, Matthew Dierker nearly killed me. The loss and pain didn’t stop in one year, it continued well into 2016.
I can say in all certainty that without Jonah, Sintra and Mr. B, I wouldn’t be here. In 2015 we lost Sintra to cancer. It was a really difficult time. Jonah and B lost their brother. And I lost one of my best good boys. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to decide alone. We kept moving forward together. In 2016 we moved to Chicago and J-bear was diagnosed with hypothyroidism. I got him radiated and he was left with weak kidneys. Despite health crap, we’ve had a good time in Chicago. We lived in this tiny apartment in Boystown for three years together before yesterday.
Yesterday I said goodbye to one of the greatest loves of my life. His heart was failing, and with it, a part of mine is eternally gone.
He loved humans and animals alike. He never lost his temper with anyone or any dog. He loved me and his friends with all of his furry-being. He wasn’t ever very far from me, especially these last few years. It was a lot like when we first started out, he was always there whenever I looked down or to my side.
He always waited for me when I had to leave the house and was standing vigil for when I returned, every time. I’ll never meet another living creature like him. I was the luckiest to have known and loved him for 19 years. He was everything.
Miss you forever Gooby. You were loved so very much. I’ll miss you every day until we meet again.
