Wasabi, c. 2008-2024

I am immensely grieved to report that my beloved cat Wasabi died this morning, aged about 16.

It was not a surprise, as her condition had been gradually declining for some time. She had worsening chronic kidney disease (quite common in elderly cats) and a heart condition that was the likely cause of fluid in her lungs, both of which left her desperately weak, down to skin and bones, and struggling to breathe. At last, there were no safe ways to treat her or to buy her any more time.

Wasabi came into my life when I moved in to my co-op in 2010; she was one of a roommate’s cats, and just fully grown. We basically bonded, and when the roommate moved out Wasabi stayed with me. She was the first cat that was truly mine, not just a foster-cat or a roommate’s.

On her own, she gained a lot more personality; she was less meek, but also more neurotic, and gave me a lot of grief by repeatedly peeing on furniture. (I eventually resorted to wrapping the couch and cushions in plastic underneath the covers, and using one of those reflective foil safety blankets to keep her from jumping up on the couch.) Always an indoor cat, she was initially very afraid of the world beyond the apartment, so much so that I began taking her out to get her accustomed to it. When she started trying to run away from me when it was time to go back inside, I put her on a leash, which she grudgingly accepted. We went on regular short walks around the courtyard at night, and on rare occasions as far as across the street, where she would ecstatically bury her face in a large bush of catmint in a neighbour’s garden.

She was not much of a lap cat, but she was sweet and affectionate, always sleeping on my legs or at my feet at night, and fond of belly rubs and chin scritches. I took many a nap curled up around her, with her paw on my arm.

One of the greatest highlights of Wasabi’s life was when the apartment had a mouse problem. She chased them around until they died, presumably of fright, and she would wait patiently for more near whatever inaccessible crack they were coming through. To my relief, after a short while her presence alone was enough to ward them off. Thereafter she was noticeably more excited about toys if they resembled real mice.

She also enjoyed rolling around on a freshly made bed (who doesn’t, really); getting little tastes of yogurt and butter; and hunting down the occasional cricket, of which I often had a container full to feed centipede or spider pets. She was very excited when birds would fly near the window, so I began putting out birdseed for them, and eventually began appreciating the birds as well. (The black-capped chickadees that visited one winter were the boldest, quickly figuring out that she could not get them through the window, and cavorting acrobatically on the clothesline as she pawed uselessly at them. Not even the house sparrows dared that.)

All of this I chronicled, like many a loving cat owner, on social media (Twitter and my various Mastodon accounts). Many people who could never meet Wasabi in life got to recognize her through my posts, and I am deeply grateful for the love, virtual hugs, kind thoughts, and wise advice everyone has sent these past few days.

Wasabi was my faithful companion through my many periods of desperate poverty and severe depression; two apartment moves; medical gender transition, including HRT¹ and surgery; and other general upheavals. She was a welcome relief when I came home from hours away at City Council or biking around the city as a food courier. Her life, too, had challenges: she needed many teeth taken out at one point, and had to go to London, Ontario for a course of radioiodine therapy for hyperthyroidism. I am incredibly grateful that my life has improved so vastly since 2010 that I was able to afford and arrange all this, and that over the many appointments and treatments in the last months of her life, I only had to worry about her well-being, not the cost.

I loved her dearly, and I know she loved me too.