After you’ve lost someone, it is funny to see the simple memories that come back to make you smile, or laugh, or cry. Tonight as I sit on my couch, Kody’s cat sits on me. Angua has lived with me ever since he moved out. The initial intention was that she would live with him once he was in a stable situation and not living in a camper. Of course, that wasn’t something that had a chance of happening since his depression only got worse, not better.

One of the things that Angua loves to do is jump on my chest and press her fur into my face. She knows that I love just smelling her fur. When she does this, I take a deep whiff of her smell and it instantly takes me back to memories in the past.

Laying on our bed, catching Angua up as a little kitten, I would hold her close and smell her fur. This always made Kody smile.

“What are you doing?” He’d always ask.

I would pretend to hide what I was doing.

“Cat Huffer,” he would laugh.

We had many inside jokes like this, but this was one of my favorites. We joked about going to cat huffer’s anonymous or writing a book called Confessions of an American Cat Huffer.

So whenever I smell a cat’s fur, I don’t remember the depression. I don’t remember the days where I couldn’t get him to talk, to move, to smile, or the day I lost him forever. I remember the fun Kody. The side of him that was sweet and kind and halarious.

I hope to never smell a cat without a smile in memory of him.