A Starlight Manifesto

It was his rapid breathing that gave the game away. Up to that dreadful moment we had shreds of hope, of outlasting the dreaded cancer eating away at him a while longer, of stealing weeks, days hours away from death. But that night we knew. We all knew.

His cat brother Danni came up to him, smelled him, and opened his eyes wide. The smell of death. The inevitable extinguishing of life’s flame. He slowly and lovingly nuzzled him as he always did, their noses bumping, and he snuggled with his brother one last time. Then, he disappeared. Cats grieve in their own way, in their own space. I knew he wanted distance and space. I knew they both understood that this was goodbye.

Loki never once asked for an easier path to an end he knew was coming. He remained defiant as he always was. Active, bright, the light of a thousand suns in his eyes. But strength of will is never enough to face down the accursed plague of you own body betraying you. The Ouroboros of cannibal cells devoured his small body relentlessly.

When the time comes it is never accompanied by melodrama. There are no swelling music scores playing, no theatrics or last-minute miracles. There is only acceptance and silence. The immutable moment of being everywhere and nowhere, of standing still in an event horizon of sorrow.

His mother held him in the end. I could not face him. I was always the cowardly one. He was his mother’s child, her shadow and constant companion. There was no other way to honor him than to have him die in her arms, and so he did. Quietly, at peace.

I thought that death was the end of his story. I was so wrong.

We have his ashes. He went to the flames, but he is not in that box we keep surrounded by his toys. He’s here, everywhere, in every atom and ray of light, in every leaf and drop of morning dew. In every tear that escapes me whenever I think of him and wish to squeeze him one more time while he licked my nose and complained of how much I kissed him.

I realize now that the light never went out, it just went up.

My baby’s flame burns brightly in the Heavens now, a constellation of one.

My baby boy is a starlight manifesto of happiness and warmth.

And his shining star in the darkness of life will guide us up to the time when we too cross that bridge, and finally meet up in the end, as parts of an undying universe.

I love you, my son.