Ramius Raske: Eorzean Inventor Extraordinaire!

Me: "I'm not seeing it"

Hello, it's been awhile. I'd like to steal just a few minutes of your day, amid the upsetting things unfolding around us, to tell you everything you need to know about Sneakers.

On an aggressively rainy day during the Fall of 2007—so her story went—my mother's attention was drawn by a piteous cry coming from under a porch in Fitchburg, MA. The tiny kitten she found cowering there was perhaps two months old, drenched, and miserably alone. Where he came from, unguessable. She brought him home, and named him Sneakers based on his white paws. Names weren't her strong suit.

Two years later, my mother abruptly moved back to the Philadelphia area where my parents grew up. My dad, sister, brother, his now-wife, and I spent the better part of a weekend clearing out her apartment, as she'd left almost everything behind: more even than we knew.

I first saw that broad silhouette and those piercing eyes peeping at me from behind a pillow as we were finishing up. He was terrified, the world he grew up in being dismantled noisily outside the closet where he'd been hiding. But as they always would, friendliness and curiosity got the better of him.

Tiny no longer, Sneakers was a big-boned, fluffy specimen with a bottlebrush tail he held high, impressing even himself. His face was strikingly handsome and distinguished. His articulate eyes were far-set on either side of a wide leonine nose that recalled a big cat of the wild. Maine Coon blood was clearly strong in him.

The others in my family, never cat people, suggested taking this poor twice-abandoned boy directly to a shelter. Unable to abide this, I called my girlfriend at the time and asked about coming back the next day to drive Sneakers back with us so we could find him a good home ourselves. We already had three cats between the two of us and it seemed unrealistic to add a fourth, so we would search for a loving home for him, and in the meantime make a warm, cozy, and comfy place for him in the finished basement where his presence wouldn't upset our cats.

Each day we would both spend time downstairs visiting with our Basement Cat. And each day he would eagerly receive us: never standoffish or even cautious. I'd sit in a chair and he'd come trotting over, stand up on his hind legs, and plant his front paws in my lap—a signature move he'd continue always after—drinking up all the attention I could give him.

It was as though he already knew that he was far too good a cat for us to even think about giving up.

Upstairs came the Basement Cat.

In seemingly no time at all, Sneakers and I forged an ironclad bond. His devotion to me was canine-adjacent. Where I went, he was my graceful shadow. On the rare occasion when he lost track of me, he'd trot from room to room, mrrowing in panic, until he found me safe and sound... and then nap as close as he could with one eye open until he was satisfied I wouldn't vanish again. When not standing up on his hind legs to plant his paws in my lap for ear scritches and rubbings of that wide nose, his second favorite activity was to sit nearby and just look at me admiringly. That habit was mutual.

He did not limit that love to me. His feline trepidation never held out long against the promise of pets from a new person. Those few of you who were fortunate to have been in his life with me for periods of time will no doubt eagerly provide testimony to his Extremely Good Cathood and character references upon request.

For over fifteen years he's been with me, through relationships, breakups, three moves, other cats—including Rugen, my other cat, who joined the family in 2012 and whom Sneakers tolerates for my sake—and some of the hardest times of my life. Always he's been there when I felt my lowest, ready to curl up at my side and look at me with an expression of, "Hey, buddy, it's all right. It's not all bad. After all, there's still dinner to eat tonight. On the topic of which..."

He was such a wonderful companion—mild-mannered, casual, friendly, never a mean thought in his head (imagine if The Dude were even floofier and tiger-striped)—that I sometimes wondered if I deserved him. I'd wonder if I was giving him all the love he needed, in those moments when I was busy. If, possibly, had I found him another home all those years ago, he wouldn't have developed intestinal cancer in 2023. If another family would have been able to afford the exorbitant cost of his cancer-fighting drugs for longer than I could.

Yes, I'm sorry. You undoubtedly suspected already, but this is That Sort of Post.

Last night, the best friend I ever had and ever will have took the long-expected turn for the worse. Early this morning, two months shy of his 18th birthday, faced with half-hearted alternatives but not much hope, I set Sneakers free from his pain. The last thing he heard was a fusillade of "I love you"s from the person he spent his life adoring and being adored by.

I lost my best human friend a year ago, and now Sneakers has finally found someone else to follow behind. Life will go on, probably. But I feel, today, exactly the way that kitten must have done, huddled under the porous shelter of a rainy porch.

Yet, I also feel happy and lucky to have had him in my life, and I know that we loved each other as hard as any two creatures on this Earth ever have. He was That Pet, for me. That one you find once in your life if you're lucky, the one whose little soul is in perfect harmony with your own. My Basement Cat deserves mourning, but also celebration.

This was Sneakers. Please perceive him. Please love him. He would have loved you.