Since my wife Saraí and I buried our dear friend, Leo, we’ve had a cat-shaped emptiness in our lives.
Given the sheer scope of his presence and personality, it’s a colossal void indeed. Cats have been a part of my life since birth, when the family shared our home with Ivy, a calico my parents adopted shortly after marrying.
But never have I met a cat who so perfectly embodied the many, often contradictory, feline traits — friendly, then aloof, then shy; cuddly here, hunting and killing small rodents there; talkative one moment, taciturn the next. Leonidas, as was his full name, thoroughly combined intelligence and instinct. His undeniable charm won over nearly all who met him.
This orange mackerel tabby came into our lives and hearts after his last owners had a change in living arrangements that made keeping him impossible. Saraí, then my girlfriend, overheard his owner talking about bringing the cat to the goat farm where they both worked. She agreed to take him without hesitation.
It was quite the whim. She was living in one corner of a house shared with a rotating cast of coworkers at that point. So when she told me she “did the madness” — a phrase I continue to hear regularly — I was a bit concerned.
Saraí’s intuition when it comes to animals was, and remains, unquestionable. Fluffer, as he was then named, despised the farm and its cross-eyed manx who wouldn’t leave him be. So Saraí took Fluffer home, and I suggested a rename: Leonidas, not only for the fearless Spartan leader but for its actual meaning, “son of a lion.” It also shortens nicely to Leo.
It should be noted that I found Saraí all the more endearing for making this impulsive decision. So big was this avowed dog person’s heart that she couldn’t bear to think of this cat being left at the farm, even before she met him.
Cats aren’t fans of change, and Leo had a rough transition from his home of eight years to a brief, miserable stay at the farm to the staff house. Housemates came to despise this loud, carrot-hued furball for waking everyone up at 3 a.m. for no apparent reason — one even intoned, “such an evil cat.”
But we refused to believe it, frustrated though we got at times. Leo soon relaxed with a little help from us, and started to enjoy the house’s woodsy surroundings. When he needed to move into my apartment (soon thereafter my and Saraí’s apartment), he adjusted quickly and came to love the unkempt fields around us.
Leo was an indoor-outdoor cat when we took him in, and while he decidedly preferred the former during winter, he never stopped asking to go out during nicer months. We didn’t have the heart to fight him, figuring his happiness depended on getting outside to see the sights, smell the smells, patrol his territory and explore a bit.
Sometimes he wandered too far, and more than once Saraí broke down thinking he had met a horrible fate. Inevitably, he would walk nonchalantly to the door — sometimes past midnight — acting as if he hadn’t heard us frantically calling for him for the past few hours.
As Leo adapted to his new home and humans, his personality unfolded. He showed his affectionate and playful sides, which we rarely saw at first. Never content with being merely a house cat, he took on many roles in our lives: a whiny kid begging for snacks one moment, a doting parent tucking in his humans the next, just to name a few.
But always was he a companion, one who saved me from the isolation of the pandemic’s early days, and someone over whom a new couple could bond.
Leo at one point had a routine of going to bed ahead of us, snuggling with whoever joined him first, leaving after the second human arrived then climbing to the top of his living room platform. Some nights he seemed to keep vigil there for hours.
Old age hit hard, and the usual infirmities gave way to more serious problems we couldn’t solve, not with love or money or medicine. I won’t dwell on the end because I refuse to think of this magnificent animal in such a state.
Leo will live on forever in my memory as that lap-sized lion cutting a stately figure atop his perch or beside us on the couch, content in the love and companionship of his humans. Or letting out a mighty purr as he soaked in another belly rub.