in memory of Nusch
Dec. 10th, 2023 07:20 pmi have disabled responses to this post. please don’t try to reach out right now, i find it very difficult to process other people's communication about this, even though i know you mean well by it. if you came here from mastodon, you can favorite the post, but please don't comment there either. maybe this is selfish, but i really can't.
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i have a hard time remembering small details over time when someone important to me dies. i write about it so that i can revisit these writings and remember the small details.
we lost Nusch on Tuesday the 5th of December, 2023. the loss is beyond immense. she was not yet seven years old. it is far too young.
i have never, ever known a cat like her, she was utterly unique. she was awestrikingly beautiful. you have never seen a cat with such beauty, i guarantee it. for a while we felt strange, undeserving, to be living with such a beautiful being. she didn’t act like some cats who know they’re beautiful. she was who she was, she had no egotism. she didn’t even like to have her photo taken.
the only thing we had ever seen that was as beautiful as her was the full solar eclipse. this, along with her love of eating cobwebs (she cleaned up our house of every cobweb she could reach within days of moving in) earned her the title “Eclipse-face the cobweb eater”. the shelter where we adopted her from had named her “Tiger Lily”, which was totally inappropriate, so not long after we brought her home, she was named Nusch, after Nusch Eluard, (who also died tragically young.)
we got her when she was an adolescent, just growing out of kitten stage. she was heavy to pick up, just dense as hell, despite how small she was. her fur felt like no other fur i’ve ever felt. it was like what i imagine seal fur to feel like. smooth, dense, an indescribably good feeling.

we adopted her a while after our cat Lumpy died. he was the sweetest boy, and was my special friend. that loss, too was immense, my heart was shattered. i didn’t know if i could get another cat, because the loss was so painful, and was associated with the trauma of my hospital stay and recovery - he had helped me heal, helped enormously. he would sit on my chest, having never done that before i was sick, but he wanted to help me. it took enormous effort for me to visit the shelter, but i agreed we needed to because our only other cat at the time, Lily, had, when Lumpy died, lost his best friend from childhood. Lily was lonely and depressed. so were carrie and i.
when i saw Nusch at the shelter, my first thought was, no, she is too beautiful and good for us. i actually left the shelter having decided it was too difficult to look at new cats. carrie convinced me to return and look again. the only cat i wanted to meet was Nusch, they put us in a room and brought her in. i remember her standing in the room, studying us from a distance for a while, then suddenly deciding we were okay and climbing all over us. she chose us, you could see her decide.
Lumpy would have adored Nuschy, it makes me feel good to know that.
she played hard when she was young, she could jump for things way up in the air, she had such big muscles, good for that kind of thing. as she grew up, her body didn't support that kind of play, but she did like rolling around with a tennis ball.

she had the most intense way of expressing her love. she would gaze deeply into your soul. on the occasion that she got on my lap she required total attention, she would take up my whole chest and rub intensely on my face, rubbing her lips into mine, smashing my nose, suddenly sniffing one eye or eyebrow. she loved smelling breath, and would ask you for a sniff with her body language. if i was away for a while, she always wanted a good sniff of my breath to tell where i had been.

she loved our other cats. she loved Lily immediately, would demand licks from him. as she got heavy, she was too large to lay on top of him. she understood that we didn’t want her to hurt Lily by laying on him and changed her behavior.

when Remy moved in, Remy was very antagonistic to Nusch for the first couple of years, i think Remy wanted to establish dominance, while Nusch didn’t care for any of that hierarchy stuff. slowly the relationship softened and they were well on the way to a very loving relationship. eventually they would come up and sniff/kiss each others necks, sometimes sleep close together. Nusch would reach out her paw to touch her. Nusch was always reaching out her paw to touch the people she loved. just a soft touch, a contact. we are together. she would put her paw on my hand and very softly, very gently sink her claws in to my hand when i pet her chest. Nusch’s attitude toward Remy was always just a little sassy though. she would still bonk her nose if she though Remy was being too weird. Remy is currently missing her big sister very much, searching for her and smelling / sleeping in Nusch’s favorite places.

Nusch loved belly skritches and chest rubs, and having her neck, cheeks and ears petted the best. she liked having kisses on her forehead. she tolerated petting all over her body, but those were her favorite areas.

sometimes when she had an intense dream, she would wake up needing consolation, and would make quick little staccato meows “mmow, mmow, mmow, mmow” until someone would come to comfort her. most of the time her meows were silent, but she could use her voice sometimes, and her voice was funny. i think she wanted to have a higher voice register than she actually did, so when she meowed in the way she thought she should sound, nothing came out. i heard her meow in a lower register once and it was very clear.

she was very smart, and very gentle, she had a loving demeanor.
she knew we loved her and knew we understood her.
she loved us back very much, and understood us as well, i believe she knew a great deal of our communication by language.
writing something like this will always be an inadequate memorial. i cannot describe subtle things, the way she moved her head, the way she walked, her many lovely expressions. photos can’t capture it all. i want to write it down and keep every detail inside me. my brain cannot hold on to it all. instead it holds on to this deep sadness. i would give anything to replace this sadness with clear, persistent memories of our beautiful, beautiful girl.
sweet, sweet Nuschy. i will always love you.
--
i have a hard time remembering small details over time when someone important to me dies. i write about it so that i can revisit these writings and remember the small details.
we lost Nusch on Tuesday the 5th of December, 2023. the loss is beyond immense. she was not yet seven years old. it is far too young.
i have never, ever known a cat like her, she was utterly unique. she was awestrikingly beautiful. you have never seen a cat with such beauty, i guarantee it. for a while we felt strange, undeserving, to be living with such a beautiful being. she didn’t act like some cats who know they’re beautiful. she was who she was, she had no egotism. she didn’t even like to have her photo taken.
the only thing we had ever seen that was as beautiful as her was the full solar eclipse. this, along with her love of eating cobwebs (she cleaned up our house of every cobweb she could reach within days of moving in) earned her the title “Eclipse-face the cobweb eater”. the shelter where we adopted her from had named her “Tiger Lily”, which was totally inappropriate, so not long after we brought her home, she was named Nusch, after Nusch Eluard, (who also died tragically young.)
we got her when she was an adolescent, just growing out of kitten stage. she was heavy to pick up, just dense as hell, despite how small she was. her fur felt like no other fur i’ve ever felt. it was like what i imagine seal fur to feel like. smooth, dense, an indescribably good feeling.

we adopted her a while after our cat Lumpy died. he was the sweetest boy, and was my special friend. that loss, too was immense, my heart was shattered. i didn’t know if i could get another cat, because the loss was so painful, and was associated with the trauma of my hospital stay and recovery - he had helped me heal, helped enormously. he would sit on my chest, having never done that before i was sick, but he wanted to help me. it took enormous effort for me to visit the shelter, but i agreed we needed to because our only other cat at the time, Lily, had, when Lumpy died, lost his best friend from childhood. Lily was lonely and depressed. so were carrie and i.
when i saw Nusch at the shelter, my first thought was, no, she is too beautiful and good for us. i actually left the shelter having decided it was too difficult to look at new cats. carrie convinced me to return and look again. the only cat i wanted to meet was Nusch, they put us in a room and brought her in. i remember her standing in the room, studying us from a distance for a while, then suddenly deciding we were okay and climbing all over us. she chose us, you could see her decide.
Lumpy would have adored Nuschy, it makes me feel good to know that.
she played hard when she was young, she could jump for things way up in the air, she had such big muscles, good for that kind of thing. as she grew up, her body didn't support that kind of play, but she did like rolling around with a tennis ball.

she had the most intense way of expressing her love. she would gaze deeply into your soul. on the occasion that she got on my lap she required total attention, she would take up my whole chest and rub intensely on my face, rubbing her lips into mine, smashing my nose, suddenly sniffing one eye or eyebrow. she loved smelling breath, and would ask you for a sniff with her body language. if i was away for a while, she always wanted a good sniff of my breath to tell where i had been.

she loved our other cats. she loved Lily immediately, would demand licks from him. as she got heavy, she was too large to lay on top of him. she understood that we didn’t want her to hurt Lily by laying on him and changed her behavior.

when Remy moved in, Remy was very antagonistic to Nusch for the first couple of years, i think Remy wanted to establish dominance, while Nusch didn’t care for any of that hierarchy stuff. slowly the relationship softened and they were well on the way to a very loving relationship. eventually they would come up and sniff/kiss each others necks, sometimes sleep close together. Nusch would reach out her paw to touch her. Nusch was always reaching out her paw to touch the people she loved. just a soft touch, a contact. we are together. she would put her paw on my hand and very softly, very gently sink her claws in to my hand when i pet her chest. Nusch’s attitude toward Remy was always just a little sassy though. she would still bonk her nose if she though Remy was being too weird. Remy is currently missing her big sister very much, searching for her and smelling / sleeping in Nusch’s favorite places.

Nusch loved belly skritches and chest rubs, and having her neck, cheeks and ears petted the best. she liked having kisses on her forehead. she tolerated petting all over her body, but those were her favorite areas.

sometimes when she had an intense dream, she would wake up needing consolation, and would make quick little staccato meows “mmow, mmow, mmow, mmow” until someone would come to comfort her. most of the time her meows were silent, but she could use her voice sometimes, and her voice was funny. i think she wanted to have a higher voice register than she actually did, so when she meowed in the way she thought she should sound, nothing came out. i heard her meow in a lower register once and it was very clear.

she was very smart, and very gentle, she had a loving demeanor.
she knew we loved her and knew we understood her.
she loved us back very much, and understood us as well, i believe she knew a great deal of our communication by language.
writing something like this will always be an inadequate memorial. i cannot describe subtle things, the way she moved her head, the way she walked, her many lovely expressions. photos can’t capture it all. i want to write it down and keep every detail inside me. my brain cannot hold on to it all. instead it holds on to this deep sadness. i would give anything to replace this sadness with clear, persistent memories of our beautiful, beautiful girl.
sweet, sweet Nuschy. i will always love you.