Ode to Atlas

When I was roughly 11 or 12 years old, I was going through a Jennifer Lawrence phase. To be fair, I was also going through a Josh Hutcherson phase (see the old Hunger Games pillowcase with his face on it in my closet). This meant that I watched nearly every one of the movies credited on her IMDB page and I would watch her interviews on Youtube because I was young, and in retrospect, had no friends. In one interview, the host asked her what it was like to win an Oscar and she referenced how she ‘doesn’t know how to win fancy awards, [she’s] 22. [She] knows how to take her dog to the vet.’ And if I’m being honest, I think about that moment entirely too much. At least once every month or two since I was 12 years old, which ironically was 10 years ago since I am also now 22. 

I’ve kind of always compared where I am in my life to that statement. Usually in regards to my acting career. I remember thinking, wow I would love to work so consistently as an actor that I win awards for my work. I’d like to be on that end of what she said. And as I’ve grown and aged, my outlook has changed. It started when I got Atlas. 

Atlas came into my life entirely through fate. And you’ll understand exactly why in a moment, because this is his story since he came to me. 

The Covid pandemic really came into full effect the spring semester of my sophomore year in university. Right before full lockdown happened (the week before my spring break) my mom sent me a train ticket to come home so she could be close to all of her children amidst the uncertainty. What I thought would be an extended spring break ended up being a 3 month stint in Wentzville, finishing up my sophomore year and transitioning into the summer. I loved getting to be around my dog and cat all the time again, I’d missed them. I always thought I was more of a dog person, we’d had both Pepper (dog) and Caliente (cat) since I was about 8 years old so I’d had a lot of both in my life. The day before my 20th birthday, we had to put Pepper down. What we’d seen as old age and health deterioration for months became so exacerbated within a week that she had a distended belly and could no longer move, eat, or drink. We were just grateful we got to be there for her, the whole family. She got to eat bacon, chocolate, and spray cheese in her final moments – some of her favorites. We tried to just focus on how happy and full of life she’d been while we had her. After all, we’d gotten to love her during the entirety of her life and our subsequent lives in Wentzville. A few weeks later I moved back to Chicago into a new apartment with someone from my same college that I had only met in person once. After about 2 weeks of living in that apartment and getting to know each other, two things came to light. My parents had gotten a new puppy and my roommate was looking at rescuing a cat. Naturally with it on the brain, at 20 and stupid, I thought I was in a place where I could rescue a dog. I was looking at shelters, and I was between 2 dogs. I really thought I could do it. I mean, I was wrong, but I didn’t know it at the time. Luckily, I didn’t get a chance to go through with it. Looking back over the last 3 years, I think Pepper had a little sway in setting things in motion. She knew what I needed. 

My roommate ended up rescuing a cat, but he would spend so much time around me that they decided that they wanted to get an all black cat and that one would be all theirs. We were still in the height of quarantine though, so there was no going in to meet this black cat my roommate decided on. He had been in a foster home and we were only to officially adopt him via curbside pickup. So, once he’s in the car – I decide his name is Atlas. In retrospect, I don’t even know why I picked that. But I couldn’t be swayed. This cat was Atlas. Since I didn’t for the last cat, I paid the fee for this cat, I also put my phone number on his tag. And how foretelling that was. The dynamic switched again. From bringing him home, that cat and I were bonded. I spent the first 2 weeks away on a prior engagement, but when I came home there wasn’t anything to keep us apart. He hated everyone, he hated me, my roommate, the other cat. But at the same time, he wouldn’t eat unless I sat right next to him or in the same room as him. Atlas has been a little asshole from Day 1, but at the same time I couldn’t blame him. What the rescue shelter didn’t inform us was that he was on fluids while in the foster home, but nor would they tell us why. When I say this kid was a vertebrae, I mean he was quite literally skin and bones. All of his papers said that he was a year and a half old, his birthday was 2 weeks to the day before mine, his previous name was Puma, and he was up to date on his shots, one of which was mistyped as being done in 2008? Either way, life with Atlas began.

It was clear that he was sickly by looking at him. No matter how much he ate, he was always hungry. He threw up clear/yellow bile about 7 times a day (which I grew used to cleaning up) and he had the MOST liquidy poops. Which he liked to do all over the floor, so I also grew used to cleaning up. But other than that and the fact that he didn’t like to be touched on his tailbone or paws, I started to grow on him. Maybe he and I trauma bonded, but this cat and I instantly loved each other. He made me giggle like you wouldn’t believe. I love snaggle teeth on cats and dogs, and Atlas had the funniest snaggle teeth on his bottom row. He got me onto a track where I realized that maybe I wasn’t a dog person, I was a cat person. A fact that was 100% reinforced when I fostered a stray dog for a week until a new home could be found, after I saved her from getting hit by 3 cars on my street. This is also when I found out that he did not like dogs. Around this time frame, he also got his nickname: Trash Rat. This came to be one VERY early morning where I heard a ruckus and woke up, wondering what the heck it was. I followed the sound into the kitchen and found this dumbass head first, upside down in the trash can and just eating garbage. This kept happening no matter how much he was fed. He also loved to slowly dive into chip bags and eat Doritos. Though, I had to be especially careful on those hungover mornings when eating McDonalds, on several occasions I let my guard down for a millisecond and he took a huge CHUNK out of my burger while said burger was in my mouth. He was a silly guy. 

In November that year, after having him for about 5 months was his first health scare. I already loved that fucker, he had me ensnared. So, this hit me hard. I remember my roommate and I taking him to a pet ER past Lincoln Park because no vet clinic was able to take new patients. When I say health scare, I mean he was very lethargic, was just laying around and didn’t want to get up or eat. The ER told us that they had to take him overnight and the next morning we got a call. They said they weren’t sure what could be causing it. We could run tests to find out what was happening and why for $3,000 starting point, or we could do a band aid situation for $300. Being college students, we did band aid situation and they gave Atlas a few meds to be administered at certain intervals. Anti-parasitics, anti-nausea, painkillers, etc. All of which I did as listed for the next 2 weeks. I remember that day, waiting for the news. I was scared. I was mid zoom class with my voice instructor and just had to turn my camera off and sob. This guy crawled into my heart and took root, I didn’t know what to do. After picking him up from the ER, he was better. Drunk or sober, rain or shine, he got those meds as specified twice a day for 2 weeks. Each one had a different end date too!

Things got smoother after that. Atlas was doing better. His bowels were still highly aggressive, but it hadn’t impacted his personality or his daily life. One time, he jumped on top of the fridge at 7:30am and accidentally knocked an empty wine bottle over. It was a pretty one I kept for decoration and shattered on my skull. Another time, I was in my movement class and had settled my laptop with a view on the couch as I did my warm up on my yoga mat on the floor. I saw messages in my ensemble group chat and noticed one stating “Sammie looks so good today!” I was so confused, I looked at the picture they sent of my video, Atlas had set himself up in the exact spot to be the center of attention and just looked at the camera as he slowly flicked his tail. I’m chuckling just thinking back on it, he was such a drama queen. He got it from me. I’ve always loved that slow tail flick he did, he would do it when he was especially content with the attention or entertained with my reaction to his latest tomfoolery. He used to do things he knew would get to me. It makes me laugh how big his personality was. He was especially content when laying half on my laptop at any given time that I was using it. Often pressing buttons that would screw it up and take me so long to figure out how to get it back in working order. I love that kid. He slept in my room, he cuddled in my bed, he liked to poop in the bathtub. Always near me but with his own personal space. I would take him outside sometimes and hold him while I got the mail so he could see the sunset. When we had a particularly pretty snow that year, I set his little paws on the snow while holding him and BOY did he not like that. A lot of things added up to my realization that he used to be a Chicago street cat. He was declawed and neutered so he definitely had a home at one point, but was so malnourished and scrappy that he’d definitely been a street cat for a while before the foster home that brought him to me. He liked to be around people who would smoke weed. Not too close, but in the same room. He liked the windows open but not the noise of the outside. After Christmas, he got himself into some edibles and ate 2 of them. I REPEAT, THIS CAT ATE 2 EDIBLES. I freaked out. Which I feel is a proper reaction! There is no way he should’ve gotten into them but he did because he was a scrappy little guy. One of which was a piece of chocolate covered in tinfoil… He ate through the plastic bag to get to the other cookie! This guy… After appropriately freaking out, I kept an eye on him all night. Not a single negative side effect. All that happened was he got the munchies. My only reaction was Of course. Of course, this kid.

Atlas would eat out of his food bowl and drink out of water bowls but his favorite was to eat and drink what was mine. He didn’t like most toys (only bobby pins and nail files?) but he loved to play the game Lets Steal Food Off Of Mom’s Plate. I always sleep with a cup of water next to my bed, I realized soon enough that he was always sticking his face in my cup and drinking water out of my cup. I was wondering why I always got cat hair on my lips when drinking out of it and why it tasted weird. The first time I caught him doing it, the cup was full of wine not water. He sticks his little head in there before I can stop him and immediately recoils his whole head and makes a face. Except then he flicks his little tongue out and goes back for more. This kid was just too funny. I absolutely adore him. I had fully resigned myself to being the ‘crazy cat lady’ as my brother dubbed me. He was a little sweetheart to me. It was clear that Atlas and I were bonded. 

That April we moved into a newer, nicer, safer apartment with the same roommate and their cat. At that same time, I completely changed his diet. I realized that even on a food routine, he was still skinny and nothing was changing. I revamped everything. I worked for a customer service company that sold and recommended pet food amongst other pet products and put that knowledge to use. I completely cut all chicken products from his diet since that’s a major allergen in cats and dogs, as well as other fowl. The thing about that is – most every cat food is made with chicken as an ingredient somewhere on the list. So I started giving him freeze dried nuggets from Primal, pumpkin puree, Rachel Ray wet food (only fish based), and Primal and Honest Kitchen probiotics, with goat milk. It was… A lot. But he liked it! He loved it, actually. So I mixed around with the wet food brands, changed up the freeze dried with raw every now and then, and went between salmon, duck, and pork. And it worked really well for a while. The only thing is, it was extremely expensive and I had to make a day trip to Ukrainian Village to the only store that sold all of those things in one place. Thus I started just ordering my groceries so I could fit it in after a day of classes with his grocery trips, seeing as I worked full days on Saturdays and Sundays every week. He even went to his yearly vet checkup for shots and they told me he was doing really well with that diet, they also gave me gabapentin for him which would soon become a staple in our lives. Atlas had general anxiety, separation anxiety from me, but also travel anxiety. That visit in specific was before we made his first trip to my parents house. It also became the first time he was dubbed with what would become a very common statement from veterinarians everywhere. “He’s very fractable. We did what we could before he lost his patience with us.” Cracks me up every time. And I was happy to admit that just prior and post that vet visit, he started to gain weight. He no longer pooped liquid, though they still remained less solid than most other cats, and he only threw up once a week rather than 7 times a day. I was feeling really proud of my little guy. 

He didn’t love train rides to Missouri, but anxiety drugs helped a lot. We all know how the Christmas visit went with the double pooping in the carrier, not to mention the move to Phoenix. On a rare day off or two I would catch some rays of sunshine on the back porch and bring him on his leash with me. We didn’t like the stairs or being up high, but once we got to ground level, he was a bit more comfortable, he didn’t like how loud the noises were though. He liked outside on the back patio in Missouri a little more. He even pooped in the grass once and then covered it up with leaves like a dog. My mom was so proud of him, it was hilarious! This sweet guy, he got used to stairs in that house and started to explore. He liked the basement and seeing what the hell was going on down there. He liked cuddling with me in my bed or on the basement couch. Seeing as it was my senior year, I threw quite a few theatre parties that year and everyone became enamored with him. I would leave him in my room because he was more comfortable there, he didn’t like strangers. The first party, people were constantly coming in and out and I got so scared when I couldn’t find him. I flipped my shit, I was so anxious. It turns out he was hiding amongst my heels in my closet. What a guy. He was dubbed the Party Cat by that crowd. My best friends LOVED him and doted on him, gave him attention and he loved them right back. Everyone in the theatre building knew of Atlas, I was known to whine about how much I missed him throughout the day. My boyfriend at the time had a whole impression of me just exaggeratedly exhaling and saying “Ughhhh I miss Atlas.” I doted on him. We were best buddies. 

Atlas had this thing he would do for a few months that summer/fall, he liked to wear his collar as loose as can be. Maybe it had to do with his tag being so large? I don’t know. He only ever did it with this one collar his Nana Jo sent him that had sushi on it. Somehow, he would get it stuck in his mouth and his jaw would lock and he couldn’t get it loose. His jaw would just be splayed open. And every time, I would run to him and either help him get it free or just take his collar off completely. He didn’t mind that, he loved being naked. Nevertheless, every day he would find a way to get that collar to be so loose his tag dragged on the floor, I would often have to clean it. Well. One time, my sister was visiting for my belated birthday gift. We were sleeping in my bed and the lights were out, Atlas was across the room on a fabric cube he loved to lay on. I hear him making a sound so I immediately shoot straight up and tell my sister to get it out of his mouth since he’s stuck and she’s closest to him. She tells me to shut up and look, I look over at him and this fucker is LOOSENING HIS COLLAR WITH HIS MOUTH. He’s totally fine. I make a noise so he knows I’m paying attention to him and he starts fake gagging. He has been faking it this whole time so I’ll take his collar off… I just started laughing because holy-hell my cat is a genius. I love that guy, he’s so funny. 

Life continues on. Atlas lays across the counter as I eat meals, work, sits while I drink wine. We watch movies together and read. Cuddle. He submits to the Winnie The Pooh onesie I put on him and the clothes his Nana sends us for him to wear. We go home for Thanksgiving, Christmas. I started bartending in January so on Saturdays I would be at work all day, bartend all night, then get home at 4am and only sleep for a few hours before going to the first job again. It was around this time that I put this large, old red blanket my aunt gave me on my bed every time I left the apartment. This was absolutely for a reason and I’ll get to it in a moment. At Christmas, when my siblings and I and each of our cats were in Missouri, Atlas decided he no longer liked that fancy food he was eating… Just completely stopped, didn’t care, he wanted to eat the kibble the other cats were eating. Except those all had chicken in them, soooo no. When we got back to Chicago I stopped with all the hoopla and gave him what he wanted – dry food and every few days wet food. I found the best kind for him and his dietary issues, got the sensitive stomach kind and the kitten recipe in the hopes it would help him gain weight. I was right. He had already gained some weight back with the fancy stuff, but this just helped and he loved it! He started to have completely regular poops too, which was life changing. Also very helpful, because upon my new bartending job, he decided to start pooping on that red blanket on my bed. The healthier aspect made it so much easier to clean up. Now, this is just when he decides I’ve been gone too long and he wants to hang out with me, not every day. When my best friend from home visits for her semi annual Chicago visit, Atlas was a perfect angel. He’s always loved Kollette and this visit was no different. He didn’t poop on the bed, he cuddled next to her every night but only after she went to sleep so she wouldn’t know he liked her. He started to like certain people. He liked my ex boyfriend, he loved my best friends Rose, Elisa, and Alex. He loved my sister, and up until the following summer – my mom just freaked him out. One instance in particular, she, my brother and dad visited. I walked into my bedroom to find him sitting calm as a cucumber on my window frame, tail doing that amused curl thing as my mom is sprawled out on her stomach on my bed (which was pressed up to the window). I have no idea what was happening before but all I heard her wail (yes, wail) was, “Why don’t you like me?? I knew her first.” Yes, mother. You birthed me. That same weekend Atlas decided he especially could not deal with separation from me. Any time I would put him down, he would flying squirrel jump towards me. Arms out and attach to my body, then climb up to my shoulders, clutch me with his little paws, and stay there. He didn’t want anyone near him. He just wanted me. One of my favorite stories though, is the morning of my graduation. My sister came the day before, slept in my bed but this time, I was on the outside so I could be closer to Atlas and get up to feed him at the asscrack of dawn when he started knocking products off my bedside table to get my waking attention. That was our daily routine and he loved it. As we follow that routine, I look towards my sister to see if she’s awake yet and no way… Nuh uh, that’s not real. Atlas had POOPED on the pillowcase above her head. I started crying laughing, it was so funny. He was so meticulous about it not touching her head or hair but being just above her head. We kept making the joke that “now, he really is a shithead.” What can I say? He didn’t like anyone sleeping in bed with me, he had half the bed and so did I. It was always that way. My territorial little bastard. Don’t even get me started on his hump pillow. My mom had a thing for buying my siblings and I Squishmallows, I in particular had a parrot one that I had on my bed when Atlas first was rescued. Shortly after his first ER visit, he took to kneading his paws on it, which slowly led to him humping the pillow. A ritual he continued almost every day so that VERY quickly became his pillow. 

After two years of memories in Chicago, Atlas and I moved to my parents house for the summer. This was… rough. First of all, the introduction of a dog. Not just a dog but a female puppy who wants to play, and 2 other cats (also girls). One of which was a kitten and one was older than him. He had only been used to a male cat regularly before this! He liked to stay mainly on the top level of the house, in my room rather than explore. Though, he did like to go downstairs and eat the dog’s food when he got the chance. Yaddi would come over and just watch him because any time she made a move to stop him, he would hit or even just stare at this 120lb dog and she would get scared and back away. One such time though, Cali saw it happen, hopped her almost 20lb and 14 year old tushy over to Atlas, sat down, made dead eye contact with him, then proceeded to slap the shit out of him. That one might be my mom’s favorite memory. I also took him into our longstanding family vet for his yearly checkout. It was here that they were able to get a look at his teeth and predicted him to be more at 8 years old, than what would’ve been his previously stated 3-4 years. This made a lot of sense in regards to him just in general but also his health and his silly little snaggle teeth. We did a blood panel to see why he was so skinny still and what could’ve caused all his health issues. I remember the conversation about the results clear as day. The tech started by saying having a thyroid level of 4 was very high, Atlas’ was at a 12. He always loved to be dramatic. The vet gets us set up with Methimazole and sets up another blood panel for 3 weeks away to check the progress. We repeat this process 3 more times before Atlas and I leave for Phoenix.

My mom took care of Atlas for me for a week when I went to visit old friends in New York and get an espresso shot of city life back into my veins. This was good because she got to feed him so he started to like her, and I got to get some ‘I’m still young and can have fun’ time. I missed him something terrible when I was away though. I made her send me an ‘Atlas Check’ every single day. Sometimes twice a day. I worried about him something fierce too, I was always afraid he would think I was leaving him if I was gone for more than a day or two. I never wanted him to think that. He had apparently missed me as well, and when I came back, he was so happy to see me. Cuddles commenced. It was during this interim time between university and my Phoenix lease starting that I really kept thinking about that Jennifer Lawrence quote. Maybe it was the Josh Hutcherson poster still on my wall from childhood that I always saw that kept it in frame of mind? I don’t know. All I knew was I had absolutely no bloody idea how to start my acting career now that I have my degree, but damn am I good at taking care of Atlas and handling vet visits. 

If you’ve read my ‘Ye of Been Burned Before’ piece, you know how the story ends. So, why am I sitting at my desk in my apartment holding a pillow with Atlas on it and preparing to pick up my little boy’s ashes this evening? 

It gets harder to write as it got harder to live through. 

A week and a half into moving to Phoenix, life was good. I was happy, Atlas had carpet, a full apartment to play in, I made my bed every day so it was easier for him to lay on. He no longer pooped on anything but the litter in his litter box. He was getting used to his cousin cat Chum. Until one day he had a really hard time breathing. I thought he was just hot, I thought it was something that was my fault. I turned the AC onto cooler, I went back to my from-home work shift. But it got worse, he was panting, and I’ve always been really in tune with Atlas and him with me. This was shooting my anxiety through the roof. I called a few veterinarians to see if they took walk-ins, none that were available today or after I got off work. I kept an eye on him and at about 8pm, I just couldn’t wait anymore. He wasn’t okay and I asked my sister to take us to the pet ER. I brought his binder with all of his documents, receipts, medications, everything. I always take it to the vet with me and I didn’t want to not have information they needed. It’s a really good thing I brought him in because the triage nurse said he had no oxygen, put him in an oxygen tank, and said his vitals were critical. They took my sister and I to a back room. I started sobbing when the nurse started telling me his vitals in the waiting room, but when they took us to that back room I sobbed harder. “They brought me to a death room!” I kept telling my sister, she kept trying to tell me it was just a room.. The doctor has to talk to us somewhere. But I was freaking the fuck out. Fear I never knew coiled within me and wouldn’t subside. After about 3 hours of waiting, a nurse came in and asked me if I wanted to sign a DNR. I sobbed harder. A nurse came in and told me I needed to prepare myself. I leaked tears but had no sobbing left. A doctor came in and told me he had fluid in his lungs, they needed to do a procedure to get it out but he’s so fractable that they needed to put him under full anesthetics which could stop his heart with his size. He was just over 6.5 lbs. I had such a migraine from sobbing all day. My sister called my mom. I couldn’t think or see straight. 4 hours in and I have no information, my sister, her boyfriend and I sat in this death room and I fell asleep for another hour. Her boyfriend goes and gets pizza. I asked for an update, but they hadn’t even gotten to him in the lineup of animals yet so when I asked to see him, they let me. He looked good! He was walking around, rubbing against me, giving me little kisses like we always do. At 2:30am, we get a doctor to tell us that they did the procedure, he’s alive and 2 and a half cups of fluid lighter. He’s doing remarkably well but he does have heart failure (for which they set us up on a prescription for) and a lung mass which they believe to be cancer but he’ll need a CT scan to confirm. I completely clean out my savings with the bill and head home for the night while they put him on an overnight drip. I end up sleeping 3 hours before they call me to let me know he’s okay to be picked up. When I see him, he’s so happy and I’m so relieved. My scrappy little guy.

He had his sides and part of his paw shaved for the procedure, but I still think he looks dashing. He’s happy to keep his rubber ducky collar on, and I keep a very anxious and watchful eye on him for several days later for any signs of relapse. We go into his new primary for a checkup and follow up on the prescription, as well as set a date for 4 weeks later to check his kidneys and make sure his prescription is being properly dosed. We get into the habit of taking these 2 prescriptions twice a day. He likes it when he gets it in cream cheese or whipped cream. Life goes back to normal. Just my sweet little guy and I against the world. 

I finally got my life together, started auditioning and planning a trip to London that I wanted to take him on. I was saving up with the job I got at a brewery. But the Saturday, just 3 days before his checkup visit, I’m working from home and notice that he’s panting and breathing really heavily. I try to keep an eye on it, I call the vet to ask for their advice and if they can take a walk in, but they’re slammed. It’s 2 hours into my morning shift where I call my boss trying to hold in tears and just say I need to take my cat to the ER again, and I really just need a few hour break. She completely understands and I drop everything, get him settled, get his binder, and catch an Uber to the pet ER. His vitals were stable when we got there but he needed to be put into an oxygen tank again. 2 and a half hours later, they take me back to the death room (which I now see as just a clinical room) and wait for the doctor. When the doctor comes in, they tell me he has fluid in his lungs again. Seeing that this is only 1 month post his last procedure as well as the amount in his lungs, this will be recurrent. He’s going to need his chest tapped once a month, but that’s not safe for him. He’ll need to be put under full anesthetics every time, but that’s not safe for him. I can’t pay continual pet ER charges every month. I just keep asking short of a life risking procedure what can I do, please. I even kept my composure (mostly) because Atlas needed me to be strong for him, I couldn’t break down. They tell me there’s essentially nothing I can do. A side effect of his pulmonary edema. His hyperthyroidism, his heart failure, his left lung mass. I talk to my mom on the phone and she tells me, he hates the vet, he hates almost everyone. He wants to go home and I need to start looking at comfort care. I ask the vet to do what they can until we can get to our primary, not even 3 days later, they give him pain meds and a diuretic and I get to take him home. And he was fine. As fine as he’s been since the chest tap a month ago. I got to spend time with him, love him, cuddle him. We went to the vet.

Entirely expecting to be told there’s a medication we can give him to give him at least a few more weeks, I am proved wrong. The checkup lasts 20 minutes maximum. They listen to his heart, his lungs, and check his temperature. I tell them what the ER doctor said and what my mom thinks. The vet simply agrees and says I should take him home and let him do what he’s comfortable with, then gets me a list of in-home euthanization services. Says I have a few days but he won’t make it through the week. Did you hear that? Sorry, I could’ve sworn everyone could hear my soul just crack wide open. 

I asked my boss for a day off so that 2 days from that stupid list being passed to me, I could schedule the doctor to come to my apartment for Atlas. The vet was at least extremely kind about it. They even covered the cost of the visit since they knew what was coming for me. It turns out, we didn’t have a few days. The rest of the day, Atlas and I just spent on the floor laying next to each other. Him napping and looking at me like I’m in his personal space, and me reading, watching tv, or talking to him. He seemed fine. But that night, things really deteriorated and the next morning I had to call the in-home doctor and push up the appointment to later that day. He almost didn’t make it the next 4-5 hours for the doctor to get there. It was scary, seeing him so in pain. But he was comfortable and in my arms when he left. The doctor had given him drugs, which we all know by this point that he loves. 

Tomorrow will be a week since. 

‘She’s 22. She knows how to take her dog to the vet.’ Atlas and I got really good at it. And then we didn’t. And it hurts a lot. It was just me and Atlas against the world. He was my best friend. And now I’m in a new state, in a new life, and he’s gone. I’m donating his food tonight when I pick up his ashes, they’re mostly full. I finally put his empty litter box into storage today. I have his collar and paw print on my dresser. I’ll have to throw all of his medication away too. I saw a video once that said animals are only a short part of our lives, but to them? We’re their entire life. That’s not true for me and Atlas. I always said he held the weight of the world on his shoulders, and that made him who he was. But I only got 3 years with him and it’ll never be enough. I know it was time, he just couldn’t breathe anymore, quite literally. But I miss my life with him. Animals are beings too. With thoughts, personalities, feelings, lives. Atlas was larger than life. He was gross, silly, fractable, and he was kind. He always knew when I needed him or when to make me laugh. We went through a lot together. And now he’s free from this mortal coil. It’s only right that his memory shouldn’t be relegated only to me. Others should know him, should enjoy him, should love and remember him. This is only a snippet of memories I have with him. Only a fraction of the 3 years we spent together and the issues we’ve moved past with each other to lean on. This is his story since he and I met but there’s a whole life he had before me, I hope those from that life love him too.