A Daily Thing

We used to be the four musketeers: Christian, me, Mira and Astin (our little alien fur-less cat).  Then one day in July Astin died, completely out of the blue and in literally less than two minutes.  He wasn’t even five years old.  This was over two years ago, and even though it seemed impossible at first we adapted to our new lives in the same apartment, but just the three of us.  We donated or got rid of most of Astin’s things, only keeping the most precious of all (his blanket, his favourite toy) in a box that I hid away.

While cleaning downstairs in our old empty apartment, I found some traces of Astin: little paw prints on the wall, invisible behind furniture that was moved or only revealing themselves when the light hit them at the right angle.  Every time I found one, I stopped and stared – very conscious of the fact that I was about to erase the very last visible traces of my cat’s short existence.  These little marks, they took my breath away.  I wish I could have kept them.