From Big Hugs to Becoming a Star

Marian de Silva

This is not a very usual type of article I would write, but I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t feel the need to. I thought I would never write about the passing of my beloved cat, Waffle. Well, here I am, finally writing about him, because maybe this might help me escape the constant loop of sadness.

Just like every day, I address you, dear reader. I hope you are doing well. And if you’re not, I hope you are at least trying. We all have gone through, or will eventually go through, a period of grieving the loss of a loved one. We call it the diurnal course. For me, strangely, it has never been a person. Throughout my life, it has always been an animal, never just an animal, but a soulmate.

Growing up, I always wanted to be a veterinary surgeon. That was a loud goal and a literal dream I used to have. But unfortunately, my health stood strictly against it. I still have the books written by Gerald Durrell, and I used to binge-watch David Attenborough, Jane Goodall, and of course Steve Irwin, among many others. Whenever my eyes caught sight of frogs, lizards, beetles, scorpions, or Bengal monitors, I used to wonder if they felt like celebrities being watched by paparazzi.

I remember how I used to sneak caterpillars from school in an old but clean bottle I took from the canteen, giving other kids the ick. But I proudly did those things because the younger me was so worried about birds snatching away the caterpillars’ chance, their moment of becoming butterflies. A shout-out to my parents, who always played along with me.

However, the only animal I was ever truly scared of was the snake. But don’t worry, I’m still working on that. Well, safe to say, my love for animals was never limited to household pets.

Losing someone you love from the bottom of your soul is hard. But the sight of seeing them yearning for life, for breath, will forever be engraved in mine. I grew up with many cats and dogs, none of posh origin, very authentic to Sri Lanka, but always given the most gorgeous names, even if they only responded to “poos.” But Waffle, the sassy, judgy, iconic cat, was something else. He was one of the divas of the Ceylon cat family.

Waffle was an abandoned kitten who found a family and came into our home when I was sixteen, at a time when I was struggling with my mental health, surrounded by doctor appointments and not-so-quiet battles. He was a tiny baby in my arms, with ears that seemed ten times bigger than his small body. I used to joke that he could hear gossip in 4K. From that day onwards, we were inseparable. Of course, he was still a cat, which meant he judged me constantly, along with my dog, Georgie. Even though he had that attitude, he was the most fun and silliest cat I knew. He was such a lover, he would come in with a loud, siren-like meow and then sit quietly next to me. He didn’t show affection every day; his love language was in the little things, headbutts, leaning against our legs, and a loud, comforting purr.

The biggest reality hit of my life came on the 23rd of March. It felt like everything I had written in my previous article, “The End and the Beginning: It Has Always Been with Us,” had somehow been a foreshadowing; because the same arms that carried him for the first time with laughter, had to carry him to his grave.

His kidneys were severely damaged. He struggled a lot. Veterinary surgeons did their best. His brain slowly began to shut down, with a gradual decrease in activity. The last thing he did before losing his body functions was slow blinking while staring into my soul, and then I knew the time had come for my best friend. But what could I do? He was still breathing. I still remember how scared and utterly helpless I felt when he suddenly had a seizure at 2:10 in the morning. The horror of not being able to comfort him, not knowing what to do, is something that has stayed with me. The last thing I could do was not hope for a speedy recovery, but for a peaceful death, because no one deserves to be in pain.

Through everything, I sat with him on the floor and talked to him. The hardest and most painful thing I had to keep doing was checking if he was still breathing. Hours passed. No sleep. No problem. Anything for my other half, I thought. But watching him fight for his life broke something inside me. When his activity had almost completely stopped, I took him gently from his little bed, placed under a soft yellow light and surrounded by heating pads. His heart was still beating. I placed him on a white cloth inside the box I had prepared for him. Then I stepped away for a moment to get my water bottle. And when I came back… he had stopped breathing.

Just a few seconds. That’s all it took. I had stepped away, ready to continue talking to him, and he was gone.

Life does move on, really. I truly learned the meaning of what I had written before, but in a much deeper way. His little body, once so fluffy, with chubby, almost gangster-looking cheeks, the face everyone called “handsome”, had already begun to grow still, hard, and cold. Time was moving. But I wasn’t. I still feel stuck.

I have a few friends reaching out to check on me, and I’m grateful. But there hasn’t been a day before the 22nd of March when I didn’t talk about him. It’s been a while now since I’ve said, “My cat, ahh poos,” out loud.

I will be celebrating my birthday, the one I had plans for. But what kind of birthday is it, when the real one, the one who made every day brighter, is gone? The places he used to sit and sleep are now empty. I knew my instincts were right when I felt like a part of me was buried with him. Life used to feel lighter when I came home and saw him looking at me like, “Oh, she’s back.” It felt complete when Georgie would do his little dances around him, just to annoy him.

There were also countless moments when people said things like, “It’s just a cat,” or suggested getting another one, or even reminded me that this was a lesson not to get too attached. I know those words came from a place of trying to comfort me, but for me, it was never “just a cat.” For me, every cat, the ones I meet on the road, the gentle ones, the feisty ones, they all matter. But replacing is not the answer.

Because you don’t replace a presence like that. You don’t replace a bond that quietly became part of your everyday life. Love doesn’t work like that.

And if you are reading this while missing someone, whether it is a person, a pet, or even a version of your life that no longer exists, I want you to know something gently, without forcing it on you:

What you feel is real.
What you lost mattered… a lot.
And the way you grieve it is entirely your own.

There is no correct timeline. No proper way to “be okay.”

Waffle was not just a pet. He was routine. He was comfort. He was a quiet kind of understanding that didn’t need words. In a life that often felt overwhelming, he was something steady.

Grief, I’ve realised, doesn’t always come in loud waves. Sometimes, it lives in the smallest moments, in reaching for something that is no longer there, in the silence that feels unfamiliar, in the instinct to call a name and stopping midway.

It’s in the ordinary moments that you realise how much space someone occupied in your life.

But here is the strange, almost gentle truth I am beginning to understand: that same space does not stay empty forever. It slowly fills with memory, with warmth, with the kind of love that doesn’t leave, even when the presence does.

What stays with me the most is not just that he is gone, but how he left, the slow in-between, the moments where hope and reality existed side by side, the quiet waiting, the helplessness.

But through it all, he was not alone. I was there. And if you have ever sat beside someone in their final moments, you will know this, sometimes, being there is the most powerful form of love we can offer.

After everything, people say life moves on. And maybe it does. But some parts of you move differently.

You learn to carry the grief. Some days it feels lighter. Other days, it returns in ways you don’t expect. And on those days, be gentle with yourself.

And then there are moments where it almost feels like they are still around, in a memory, in a habit, in the way their name still comes so naturally to your lips.

I still talk about him. Not entirely in the past tense. Because to me, he still exists, just in a different way.

And Georgie… he knows something has changed. The house feels different. Quieter.

But within that quiet, there is also memory. And memory has its own way of keeping love alive.

This was not meant to be a heavy piece. But I suppose grief finds its way into words when it needs to. If you have ever lost someone who felt like a part of you, you will understand this feeling. And if you haven’t, I hope you never have to.

But if you ever do, I hope you remember this:

• Love does not end where life does.
• It simply changes its form.

For me, I am still learning how to live with it, still learning how to exist in a space that feels slightly emptier, yet still full of him in so many ways. Writing this hasn’t taken the sadness away. But it has made it feel a little less overwhelming. And for now, that feels like enough..