Gertie, My Fierce Little Shadow
Don Krumpos · Emotional · Family · Memoir
I met her in December 2008, in my Minneapolis apartment. I set down a fresh bowl of food and watched her take her first careful steps into our life together. She was a tortoiseshell — bold, independent, a little unpredictable. Feisty in the way only tortoiseshells can be. She would be my companion for the next sixteen years, through six homes and more phases of my life than I can count.
Gertie was a road-tripping cat. She traveled with me between Algoma and Minnesota, hating the first few miles, then settling in once we hit the highway. Sometimes she perched on the back window, surveying the landscape like it owed her something. Other times she curled up beside me, my tiny co-pilot. I never got a proper carrier for her, which was fine until it wasn’t.
In 2017 I got into a car accident in Kentucky. The car was totaled, windows blown out, and in the chaos of the junkyard where it was towed, Gertie bolted into the tall grass and rusted metal. I didn’t chase her. I knew that if I chased her, she’d run farther. So I waited. Hours passed. The sun got low. Then, just as the kids’ van arrived to pick me up, I heard her rustling in the grass. I reached down, grabbed her scruff with every ounce of strength I had, and refused to let go. She was not going to become a Kentucky wildcat. She was coming home.
When we moved to Steele Street, she finally had a courtyard — a tiny kingdom where she could roll in the dirt, sunbathe, and stalk whatever small creatures dared to cross her path. She was an exceptional mouser, always patrolling for winter intruders, keeping our home rodent-free with a hunter’s pride. One time she snatched a baby bunny and tried to smuggle it upstairs. I grabbed her by the tail at the last second to stop her from releasing a half-dead rabbit into the house. She looked at me like I was the unreasonable one.
She was endlessly curious. If I left a cabinet door open, she’d be inside within seconds. If I set a box down, she’d claim it. If something changed in the house, she had to investigate. During video calls she became a frequent topic of conversation, perching nearby with the studied indifference of someone who knows they’re being talked about.
One of my favorite things was when she slept on my chest during naps. She’d knead me with her sharp little claws, sometimes to the point of pain, but I never stopped her. It was her way of showing love, and the warmth of her small body was always a comfort. She loved being near us, but always on her own terms. She’d hang at the edges of the room as if she didn’t care, but she was always there. And when she wanted attention, she demanded it — jumping onto the bathroom sink for a drink from the faucet, rubbing against our legs, or letting me scoop her up, turn her upside down, and cradle her like a baby. She’d meow in that grumbly, contented way, burying her face into me.
A couple of years ago, toxoplasmosis nearly took her. She bounced back with stubborn determination, the way she did everything. I thought maybe she’d rally again this time. But her kidneys were failing, and in her last days she hardly moved or ate.
Today I said goodbye to her. The house is quiet in a way it wasn’t before — not the absence of noise, but the absence of presence. No paws padding across the floor. No small warm body appearing at the edge of whatever room I’m in, pretending she just happened to be passing through.
Sixteen years. She was a constant — fierce, funny, sometimes cranky, but loyal in the way that only an animal who has chosen you can be. I will miss her so much.