There comes a time when you encounter a truly special animal.
For my wife and I, it was our cat Goose. She picked him up from the Athens Humane Society right before we moved in together. At the time, this seemed like a predictably bad decision, amongst other chaotic things in our life. Fortunately, this turned out to be an overwhelmingly positive move.
Immediately, Goose became a loving member of our family. There was not a moment when he didn’t want to be around us. If you sat down for so much as a second, he would pounce on top of you, demanding pets.
At the time, I was working from home, which gave me and Goose plenty of time to bond. Some would call it pestering, but I welcomed any moment he would jump on my lap and hijack my Zoom calls. Eventually, he claimed a permanent spot on my desk.
Goose was there for so much in the little time we had with him. Two moves, another cat adoption, and a marriage. Despite all of this, he continued to prove to us every day that he was a one in a lifetime cat. Whether he was aware of his impact, I don’t know, but what I do know is that he brought Ansley and I closer together. Once you witness a creature giving so much unconditional love for everything, you start to realize they’re doing it for a reason.
And maybe that is what I will remember most about Goose. He never needed much from us; he just wanted to be near us. A warm lap, a few pets, and a place on my desk were enough to make him happy. In return, he gave us more love than we could have ever asked for.
To us, Goose was only a part of our lives. A meaningful part, certainly, but still only a small fraction of everything we will experience. To Goose, we were his whole world. We were his home, his family, and the people he wanted to be around every moment he could.
I know that somewhere out there is a mothership, and I have to believe Goose has finally made his way back to it. Maybe this was always just a temporary stop for him. A few years on Earth, a couple of humans for him to love, and thena trip back home.
I hope that wherever he is, he is happy. And I hopehe knows that,down here, he was loved more than he could ever understand.