June 26th, exactly two weeks before my 27th birthday, my mom called twice in a row. I thought something was wrong before I answered—she never redialed right away—and knew it seconds later. When had she breathed like that before? How many times, in nearly three decades of life, had I heard her cry so desperately?
My childhood cat, Ophelia, had just died in her arms. No warning, no preamble, no slow-and-steady decline—hell, the vet saw her just a week before. Just sudden absence.
I picked Ophi from the shelter when I was nine years old. The staff called her Rango, sister to an even smaller kitten named Kanga, but I liked “Ophelia” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. (At that point in my life, I only knew the name thanks to a friend’s older sister.)
Ophi sat on my mom’s shoulder the entire drive home from the humane society. She lived in my bedroom for the next several weeks. She climbed my loft bed when we weren’t looking—a skill we had no idea she possessed—leading us to search the rest of the house for an hour before realizing she was happily perched atop my pillow, purring.
Ophi kept a kitten’s meow her entire life. She chirped and trilled; she never hissed. She ran away from strangers but claimed her family each evening, pressing her forehead into our palms. A tiny black smudge beneath her nose formed a sort of lopsided toothbrush mustache (and yes, we made questionable jokes about it). She hated going outside, didn’t even like to sunbathe, and was happiest as a perfect circle in the middle of my old bed.
She was eighteen when she left. That was so long to love her. It’s just never long enough.
Ophelia was the last of my four “original” childhood pets. We named Charlotte after E.B. White’s famous spider when I was three. Larry the bichon arrived when I was five. (At first my dad swore he didn’t want the dog—years later he insisted we bury their ashes together.) Lucy, another bichon, came two years later. Finally my black-and-white kitten made us complete.
When we lost Larry—the first to go—I wore his collar on my wrist until the familiar scent started fading. I borrowed a roommate’s car, late the night before an exam, to drive home from college for a final kiss on Lucy’s head. The world’s nicest cop pulled me over on my way to say goodbye to Charlotte, getting more than he bargained for when he asked if there was a reason for my speed.
Ophelia was the only one who left when I wasn’t there. I FaceTimed once the rest of my family had arrived, cried fresh tears seeing black fur peek out of a towel in my father’s arms, but it wasn’t the same. The physical distance underscored what I’ve felt building for years: I am farther from childhood than ever before.
The OG crew connected me to my hometown, to the house my family lived in for so many years (the one my parents still call theirs), to my innocence. These creatures made me during their lives. They devastated me in their deaths.
And now I am 27. I have never felt more like an adult and less like I want to be one. But I cling to my first blueprint. I will chase the sun for Charlotte. Never hold my affection back for Larry. Play until stupid-happy exhaustion for Lucy. Lead with gentleness for Ophi.
Remember all of them through Scout.
