Riley, My Little Man

Riley
2004-2007

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal,
Love leaves a memory no one can steal

Today makes it one year since Riley passed away. Because this is his day, I will not get into the specifics. I will simply write about him & what he meant to us...

On August 1, 2004 around 11pm I was working at the Orange County Fair when a customer pointed out that there was a small orange cat under the Mr. Frosty truck. It was the last night of the fair & I couldn't bear the thought of this little kitten being left to roam the midway alone. Since there were virtually no customers at my stand, I went over the the Mr. Frosty truck to let the kid behind the counter know that I was going to try to catch the kitten. He was cool with it. After about 10 minutes of coaxing, I almost had this little kitty in my hands when he bolted over the hide beneath a moving truck. I pursued & he ran again into the middle of pricker bushes. Some fair patrons & the Mr. Frosty kid saw what was going on. They helped chase the kitten right into my waiting arms, which were 3/4 of the way into the bushes. I called Joe at about 1am to let him know I was bringing a kitten back to his house.

When I got back to the house Joe was up awaiting the new arrival. While I was out of the room Riley tried to nurse off of Joe, who was laying in bed without his shirt on. That was hilarious. That first night Riley cried & sneezed all night. The next morning brought the 3 of us to the veterinarian. $700 later, we were told that he would never loose his sniffles. Other than that, we had a healthy 6 month old kitten to proudly raise.

Time passed quickly; Riley became my baby. He liked to sit on my hip & be held like a baby. This was how I usually carried him around the house. He would also sit on his hind legs & stretch his arms out. This became known as "giving huggies" & was how we knew that he wanted to be snuggled. Like any child, he liked to sleep in bed with us...and like any child, he would lay himself right between Joe & I. He always slept in the crook of my arm with his head on my shoulder or on my pillow, still keeping his head on my shoulder. Anytime I would be sad, he would come lay with me to comfort me. He never liked to see me sad & would start to try to play with me.

Because he was always congested, he would always sneeze. He covered everything in boogers. We used to joke that it was his way of marking his territory...that & leaving the remnants of my half eaten my flip flops around the apartment. When we got a faux leather computer chair for the desk, he clawed it to shreds while happily sneezing all over it.

He was a curious kitty & tried to make friends with everything. One day at Joe's parent house, Riley discovered a large snapping turtle & was fascinated with it as it made its way across the backyard. Another time he took a "vacation", disappearing for a week. I was frantically worrying about him. He turned up down the road & the family that found him said he was playing in the swap & eating frogs all week. I guess the frogs weren't as social, so he thought eating them would be better.

He had a little hanging mouse toy we got for him a few days after I brought him home. He proceeded to happily chew off it's arms, legs & part of its head. He would proudly walk around with the toy that we all referred to as "Mr. Headless-Legless Mousie". It was also the toy that we buried him with. I'm sure in heaven that toy has an infinite number of heads & legs for Riley to pop off.

Now a year after his passing, my heart still holds the pain of this loss. There are times that I still feel he is here with me. I still cry when I think about him & this morning he was the first thing that I thought about. I don't think that the pain will ever go away completly. I know that it may sound silly to some, but this was the closest that we have ever been to loosing a child. Riley was the first "baby" we ever had.