Going Back

This morning I woke up and, just like yesterday, my first thought was of Harley. Yesterday, I burst into tears. This morning, I smiled. I'm still sad, I still miss him, but I'm starting to heal.

I'm finding it cathartic to go through pictures of him, and old blog posts. I'm cracking up, reading things I wrote about him. I called him everything from my Orange Creamsicle to Demon Spawn. And oh, how I loved him.

Life with Harley was never boring. From this post in March 2009:

Today was a busy day for him. He managed to upset the glass top to my living room table (didn't break it, thankfully!) and pull down the shower curtain. Since December he's managed to scratch my sofa and chair into nice ragged pieces (when he's older, I'll get new ones) and shred his share of toilet paper and break a vase. Oh, and I had to pack my favorite Spanish sheepskin rug away for a while because it seems he likes the taste of it. As this is a rug that my parents bought in Spain in 1979, I'd like to keep it nice.

He destroyed my living room furniture, and I just took it in stride. I used to joke that when it was time to buy new, I'd take him with me to the furniture store. Whatever he didn't want to scratch, I'd buy.

He was a purrvert who rolled in my dirty laundry, stuck his paw down my shirt, crawled under my choir dress, and watched me shower. He would cry piteously if I locked him out of the bathroom, and when I let him in with me, he'd sit on my lap and purr.

Houseplants cowered in his presence, and Harley kept his "apurrney" (attorney) busy with all of those allegations of plant-eating.

And let's not forget that he ruined not one but two sets of computer speakers this year alone.

But to be honest, these incidents weren't what made up life with Harley. Life with Harley was truly about having a very sweet little guy who couldn't help but be naughty. Obviously, he was named Harley because of that loud, rumbling purr, and he purred often, and with gusto.

I wouldn't trade one minute of my time with him.

Going back through these blog posts, I found a few pictures I'd forgotten about, and a post I once did called A Love Story in Six Words.

It helps the healing to talk about him, write about him. Remember him. To laugh, because he was the funniest little guy. And he loved me, too.

How my parents and I laughed when he walked right up to me and
shoved himself under my choir dress.

Mama's Boy