Who Rescued Who?
The sudden decision to get a cat saved my life, in so many ways.
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It was October 27, 2018. That day, a shooter walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA and proceeded to murder 11 people and wound six others before being shot and arrested by police.
In my role as a journalist at the time, the Tree of Life shooting capped off a streak of multiple weekends covering a mass shooting.
Something broke inside me that day.
I had lived by myself since 2016, first in Maine, and then in the greater Washington, D.C. area. The vast loneliness of my existence, a reporter who both lived and worked from home in a 4th floor apartment overlooking a very busy thoroughfare. There was no outdoor space, and my air conditioner pumped out a suspicious looking black dust. I later determined that dust was a combination of rubber and asphalt from the busy road out front.
That day in late October, I felt the walls closing in around me. I felt utterly alone. That was the day Samwise walked into my life.
It was a pretty sudden decision, getting a cat. I finally couldn’t take the emptiness of my apartment anymore and called an Uber to take me to the local animal shelter. Samwise was this skinny little orange cat in a sea of cats. I was told he had been a stray and they weren’t sure how he would do as a pet.
He was the only cat that didn’t bite me that day. I decided to take him home immediately. Later that day, he bit me. I didn’t care.
At the time, whenever a friend of mine asked me what his name was, I would tell them, and then add “we’re walking through Mordor together,” in a half joking way. Little did I know how prescient that joke would become.
The apartment that already felt confining never felt smaller. I didn’t have a car to escape, so I stayed inside, with the road particles and a nasty cough that never went away. A depression deeper than anything I’d experienced before.
I’m not sure Samwise was ever fully comfortable in that cramped DC apartment. He developed a fondness for ripping up a section of the hallway carpet (and peeing on it) whenever he was stressed. I tried everything I could to stop him, I sprayed the carpet and wall with allegedly cat repellent smells, I yelled at him when I caught him doing it, I sprayed him. Nothing worked.
Still, my frustration couldn’t last once he settled in on top of me while I was watching TV while sprawled out on my couch. It was in those were the moments where our bond was first sparked.
But it was a little more than a year after I got him that Sam really started saving my life.
The pandemic started in earnest in March 2020, and everything shut down. No longer was I going down to cover Congress or going downtown to the Vox office for my new job as a part-time member of the politics team. The metro system I had previously relied upon to get me around was deemed unsafe. My best friend who lived in the same apartment complex moved away for a new job.
The apartment that already felt confining never felt smaller. I didn’t have a car to escape, so I stayed inside, with the road particles and a nasty cough that never went away. A depression deeper than anything I’d experienced before, even in the darkest days of my trans closet, fell upon me.
Then the cockroaches showed up.
I had always thought that cockroaches only infested dirty apartments, those of unclean people who couldn’t take care of themselves or their living space. I quickly decided I was one of those people and that I deserved the infestation.
Looking back on it now, and after talking with several friends who experienced similar things, I understand it was largely out of my hands. There was construction in my building that likely forced the bugs to find a new place to live, and my apartment had an unsealed bag of flour in the cupboard. I didn’t stand a chance. Once or twice, Samwise would catch a mouse and play with it while I screamed and then attempted to snatch it away from him. One time, I picked one up and was on my way to the garbage chute when I dropped him and he scurried away. Sam looked at me with a look of utter contempt. The next day I found a severed mouse head in my kitchen. No body, no blood, just a mouse head. I try not to think about what may have transpired while I was sleeping.
I’ve never felt lower. I spent my days not working or cleaning my apartment or trying anything to change my living situation, but instead sprawled out on my couch watching TV. I rewatched the entire MCU movies, I rewatched the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit several times over. I rewatched Band of Brothers twice.
Through it all, there was Samwise, lying on top of me as we walked through Mordor together.
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I’d be lying if I said I didn’t frequently think about ending my life during that time. It’s not something I’ve told many people. You’re supposed to be happy and not depressed as a trans person after you transition. My death would have been recorded as yet another trans suicide, but no one would have known that it wasn’t my gender that did it, it was the isolation, the endless coughing, and the fucking cockroaches.
In the end, I couldn’t do it. Not just because I’m deathly afraid that there might not be an afterlife, but because I couldn’t bear to think what would have happened to Samwise if I was taken away from him. Who would take care of him? Who would make sure he had a perch in the sun to sleep on? Who would he lie on top of on the couch? It had to be me.
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Eventually I built up the will to escape my situation, moving to where I live now in beautiful (and very gay) Western Massachusetts. Sam and I rode alone in the cab of the moving truck, hauling all my stuff up the eastern seaboard. He cried nearly the whole time.
I dumped him at the new place at around midnight with food, water, and a litter box, and exhausted, I drove to a nearby hotel for the night. When I came back the next day, he was still hiding in the carrier. After the movers helped bring in all my stuff, I found him hiding in the closet, sitting in his litter box. It was probably the only familiar thing he could find that he knew was his.
At the new place we started to put together our lives. The new place had multiple sunny windows that he could rotate between the day, and then in the evening, we had our usual couch and tv routine. My old apartment building back in DC went viral a while back for a tenant who had a major cockroach and mouse problem.
Once up north, I slowly put things back in place. One thing at a time. Eventually I reached out to local friends up here and now I have an actual social network, a car, and a nice walking neighborhood. Home feels like a place to flourish, not flounder. It felt like Mordor was in the rearview mirror, finally.
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I knew I’d eventually lose my Samwise, but I thought I’d have more time with him. He was only ten years old when he got sick a few weeks ago, after four years together here in Massachusetts.
I first noticed he was eating less. Then he wasn’t eating at all. The vet said he likely had an issue with his liver. It only got worse from there. Three days later we were at the animal hospital. I won’t recount the medical details here, but he had a slim chance to survive to begin with. Some last-minute fundraising bought him another day of treatment. I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for my beloved cat, who, over the years, became a mini-Twitter/BlueSky celeb through my posting of cute and silly photos of him. That wonderful community showed up for me and Samwise when we needed them the most.
But eventually I had to make the painful decision to let him go.
His last moments on Earth were spent in my arms with the sun shining on him through the animal hospital office window we were sitting in front of. As I scritched his ears, the sun bathing him as I told him how loved he was, I heard a tiny little purr.
It would be his last. He then went where I can’t follow.
I hope he knows he saved my life. We walked though Mordor together, but I can take it from here now. Thank you my dear Sam.
This piece was edited by s.e. smith and copyedited by Nicole Froio.