ADAMS: I lost my cat because I left a window open. I didn’t know grief could hit this hard, years later.

I didn't cry all that much when my first romantic relationship ended. I cried for maybe 15 minutes, but mostly spent the next several months sulking before moving on. But four years after my cat Boomer disappeared, I saw a tortoiseshell cat on Instagram and completely lost it. I'm not exaggerating when I say I'd give anything—anything—to hear her distinct, annoying, middle-of-the-night meow one last time.

We got Boomer when I was two years old. I named her after a dog toy. I was a dumb kid. For most of my childhood, she was just there—a furry roommate who occasionally broke my electronics (RIP, my original DSi) and knocked over glasses.

I liked cats, but Boomer wasn't the centre of my world. That changed in 2020.

Like many people during the pandemic, I had a day where I just broke down. Everything felt impossible. Boomer, who had never been particularly sentimental, sensed something was wrong. She sat next to me, did that little sniffing thing cats do when they want your attention, and looked at me with what I can only describe as concern. From that day on, I became attached to her in a way I hadn't been before.

Boomer was always a funny little asshole. She'd tear open window screens, meow all night long, and escape into our backyard at every opportunity. And when my insomnia acted up, her nocturnal yowling—which should have driven me crazy—somehow helped me fall back asleep.

In August 2022, I left the bathroom window open one late summer afternoon. It was hot. I needed cool air while I shat. My parents had warned me a hundred times: “Don't leave it open or Boomer will escape.” She'd gotten out before. She always came back. Once, she even made it to a neighbour's house and came home pregnant.

This time, she didn't come back.

I hadn't meant to leave the window open. I wasn't being malicious. I was just a person who made a mistake in a hot bathroom. Four years later, I still don't know what happened to her. A car. A coyote. An alien. Something else. I only know she's gone, and I'll never see her again.

For a long time, it didn't hurt this much. Grief is strange that way. Sometimes your mind protects you, numbs you, lets you function. Then, years later, a trigger arrives—a cat that looks like her, a quiet moment alone, a trip away from home—and the feeling you'd been holding back comes rushing in like a flood.

I've learned something painful but important: we often don't realize how much a pet means to us until they're gone. Not because we didn't love them, but because their presence is so constant, so woven into the fabric of daily life, that we forget to notice it.

Boomer was there for 14 years. She was there when I was a toddler, a young teenager navigating a pandemic, and a slightly older teenager coming out of a pandemic. She was there for the mundane mornings and the sleepless nights. And I didn’t fully appreciate her until she sat next to me in 2020 and showed me that a cat can care.

If you have a pet that you take for granted today—one that knocks things over, meows at 3 a.m., or tests your patience in a hundred small ways—don't wait. Go find them. Sit with them. Let them be annoying. Because one day, you might leave a window open by accident. And you might never forgive yourself.

I loved Boomer. I also made a mistake. Those two things are both true. And if she were here, I think she'd knock a glass off the table and meow at me until I understood.

This piece is an archival work of the author, originally published elsewhere, and is presented here for historical record. The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of the Provincial Times. Read our Content Policy here.