Losing My CoPilot

Lake Stevens Pet Show 96′

As some of you may know and others don’t. Last month I lost my friend and feline co-pilot Bird. She lost the good fight to her second stroke. She had her first stroke a year prior and fought if off and kept on keepin on. But this stroke was too much for her at the old age of 16.

Birds Last Pic

There is a struggle in life to live and a struggle to die but after each struggle there’s always a sense of peace. When Bird died in my arms and she took her last breath, I thought there was going to be an overwhelming amount of sorrow.

Actually I felt relieved that she wasn’t struggling anymore and that she was able to rest. Wherever she goes, I have no idea, maybe some of you know for sure but I have no idea what happens when you die…it freaks me out but you know what… it’s the good kind of freak out. It’s that mystery we all get to find out in the end and Bird got to find out before me.

I’ve never seen death before. Knowing this cat and being with her for 16 years, born in my house, building tree-forts as a kid with this cat. She was there from the beginning. To see her go the way she did…it was…I want to say magical but most people see magical as a good thing. This was one of those experiences that wasn’t good but also wasn’t bad…it was death…it was a passing, a change and we all are gonna do it. I hope mine will be as beautiful as Bird’s was. She was curled up with a loved one, she wasn’t alone, she wasn’t cold. She was leaving and I was lucky enough to be there and watch her set sail.

Always A Smile To My Right

Bird passed away at 5am in a business parking lot in Las Vegas and I had her cremated by a local animal hospital. Now I am alone, she is gone and I am here alone in my RV. It’s different now, there is a lot of things I look at differently. Most people change after a near death experience or when something amazing or terrifying happens. I think I got a sense of all three. I don’t want to be the same guy that I was before. I think now there’s a little more, if not just .0001 % understanding of what life is all about.

Have Bird Will Travel

It’s weird to know when something intangible is gone. It makes you understand life is more than just experiences, its connections that really give us life. Between you and everyone and everything you let into your world.

My hope for explaining this experience wasn’t to make you sad but really to have you take a look at your own life and your connections with your friends and your pets. They are just like you…they’re a soul, they are going to come and go and when they’re gone it’s different…you’re different.

After Birds first stroke a year ago, I knew the clock was ticking and she wasn’t going to be around much longer. So I was going to make sure to cherish every moment I could have with her.  There were nights all I did was just pet her for hours and hours. Just relaxing, chilling with my homie Bird. We both were breathing, living, me smiling, her purring… just enjoying it all. No struggles, no worries, just living life.

Bird 1995-2011

Bird’s ashes are going to be scattered at Mission Bay Park in San Diego California. Why there? Well, it’s one of the places we have traveled to that she really seemed to embrace the road lifestyle just as much, if not more than myself. Laying in the grass, soaking in the sun and breathing in the sweet sea air. That cat lived the life other cats can only dream about. She had it all and I made sure of it. Not in the crazy “cat lady” kind of way. I just wanted to make sure she was always… always good…you know.

16 years of flying together, house to apartment to townhouse to beach house to an RV. She was there for it all and was always right by my side at night as I dreamed about tomorrow. I feel so lucky to have connected with such an awesome cat. Now I drive onward, towards another beautiful connection, holding with me a sense of love I will never misplace.