His name was Vinz Clortho, my Vinzy Kitty. His full name was Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer. Named after the demon dog from Ghostbusters, which felt appropriately dramatic for a cat I didn't yet know would become the great love of my life.
I love you, my Mommy!
We did not have a smooth beginning.
When we first brought him home, we kept him isolated for a couple of days — standard protocol when introducing a new cat to a resident one. Ours was Zuul, a beloved black cat and, yes, also named after a Ghostbusters character. We take our naming seriously in this house.
Once Vinz was allowed to explore the rest of the home, he disappeared into the basement — scared, disoriented, hissing at me when I found him. I followed him upstairs, where he hid himself inside a bag, cowering. When I reached for him, he bit me. Hard. Hard enough to break the skin.
I didn't know how to react. In the panic of the moment, I threw him, by the scruff, into the upstairs bathroom. I'm not proud of that. It was a frightened reflex from someone who had just been hurt by an animal she didn't yet know, but was desperate to love after experiencing the loss of her dear Gozer.
I cooled down. And then I went back.
I brought him food. I sat with him. I tried to let him know I wasn't a threat. He had probably cooled down too, because when he saw me — and the food — he started purring.
That purr was the beginning of everything.
I also didn't know then that I probably should have gone to the hospital — cat bites need medical attention I wasn't aware of at the time. The wound didn't get infected. I got lucky. I also didn't know that the terrified little animal in that upstairs bathroom had already been returned to the shelter twice. That he was one year old and had already been failed by people twice. That whatever had happened to him before us had made men in particular feel like a threat.
He chose me anyway. That has always meant everything.
After that day, he never left my side.
The Bond
My Constant Shadow
I'm helping Mom study, by taking a nap near her.
I don't know exactly when the shift happened. But somewhere between that basement and the weeks that followed, Vinz decided I was his person. And once he decided, it was absolute.
He was my study partner when I went back to school — present for every late night, every frustrated sigh over a project, every moment of quiet focus. He scolded me when I got home late from work, meeting me with the specific vocalization that communicated both relief and disapproval. He was my gaming partner. Every night he slept on my head, his purring a metronome that pulled me under into sleep.
He was not generous with this devotion. He didn't much like my husband and only tolerated a small handful of people. My husband recounts waking up one night to Vinz methodically batting at him with a paw until he relocated. Vinz had opinions about the sleeping arrangements and enforced them.
Mom, stop taking pictures of me.
Our greetings were a ritual. When I'd come upstairs, I'd sing it — hiiiii VINZ! — and he would jump onto the bed, purring and trilling, moving to the pillow we shared, grabbing my hand for face and belly scruffles. He was not a cuddly cat by default. With me, he was nothing but.
The morning routine is what I miss most. It had two parts, and I loved both equally.
The first was in bed. He would sense me waking and the purring would start. On mornings when I was more alert than usual it would escalate — building until he nibbled my nose. I'd hide my face, giggling, which only made the purring louder. It was the best possible alarm clock.
The second began after I noticed the first signs of weight loss. I started feeding him separately from the other cats. I would bring his food into the bathroom, set it down, and sit on the floor across from him. Before he'd eat, he'd prance over and give me headbutts, purrs, and kisses. I'd lean over and scruffle his neck, kissing the top of his head. It was unhurried and tender and completely ours.
So much love in one little kitty.
I would give anything to sit on that bathroom floor again with him.
The End
The Decline
He was only 14 when the cancer came for him. It moved fast. A large abscess on his face, then weight loss that alarmed me immediately — he was never a heavy cat, so any loss showed. Then incontinence, a smell that wasn't quite right, and a vet visit that confirmed what I already feared somewhere in my gut.
I was able to secure a vet appointment where they ordered an ultrasound and also ordered some bloodwork and some other tests. Pretty routine for an elderly kitty who hasn't seen the doctor in a long while. They kept him for observation and said they would call when they had the results.
I got the call later that day while I was working from home (or had vacation time and took the day off,) I was at least allowed to be home to wait for the results of the ultrasound. The call came in, terminal cancer. The house cameras recorded the moment I found out and captured the excruciating and loud heartbreaking sobs that came out of me. I watched it later. I don't recommend that, but I also had to.
John quickly came home early from work and we went to pick him up. I put on a brave face even though inside I was not ready for the news we were about to get. The options our vet laid out were thorough and compassionate — she gave us everything she could. But the most viable path would have bought him only a couple more months, and not months worth living: repeated procedures to drain fluid building around his organs, until that stopped working too. They only charged us for part of the ultrasound given what it revealed. I was grateful for the kindness of that, and for a vet who gave us every option while being honest about what each one meant.
We brought him home and built him a very cozy kitty condo from a large dog crate — a shelter away from the other cats, a space that was entirely his. He loved it. I loved watching him love it, even as I was watching him leave. This was pallative/hospice care and we had a very different routine, but he adapted quite well to this change.
On May 28th I was at dragon boat practice, late afternoon into evening. While I was gone, he got stuck between the litter box and the side of the crate. My husband found him. When I got home I felt the weight of it immediately — that sick, hollow feeling of having been somewhere else when he needed me. I still carry that. I know it wasn't abandonment. It doesn't always feel that way.
At 4:30am the next morning I woke up and called Lap of Love — an at-home euthanasia service a coworker had recommended — and moved his appointment to 9:00am that same day.
Goodbye Mom, I will always love you.
That last morning, we fed him and made sure he was comfortable. He had lost his sight completely by then and couldn't move much. We were suprised he didn't pass on his own that night. I said to him, "Oh, you are still here. You are such a brave boy Vinzy." At some point, in a moment that felt like the universe closing a circle, while I was feeding him with a popcicle stick, he accidentally bit my finger — hard enough to draw blood. The same hand. The same bite that had marked the very beginning of us, now bookending everything at the end. I look upon these scars with a deep and everlasting love.
He passed on our bed, where he had always been most comfortable. Lap of Love was everything their name promises — gentle, present, unhurried.
I petted him so he would know I was still there. I said his name to him. I comforted him in his last moments. I told him it was ok for him to go and that I loved him. I said goodbye in the way he deserved. The vet let us have our last moments with Vinz before he was carefully carried to her car. I hugged my husband, seeing him cry, and I sobbed into his shoulder.
The rest of that day, after he was taken to be cremated, was a complete blur.
His space now.
The Crew
The House He Left Behind
Our kitty crew, Vinz Clortho, Winston Zeddemore, and The Sloar. Before we had to say goodbye to Vinz.
Vinz wasn't our only cat, and our home has always been full of Ghostbusters characters. We take our naming seriously.
Zuul — our beloved black cat, named after the Gatekeeper — was our roommate's soul cat, though I loved her deeply too. She had lymphoma and passed before Vinz.
Winston Zeddemore waited patiently to become my cat when the time was right — he was here during Vinz's final months and has been a quiet comfort since.
The Sloar was also part of the household during Vinz's time.
We lost two sweet kittens too young — Marshmallow and Gozer, both to FIP, a disease that takes them fast and without mercy.
Two months after Vinz passed, we adopted Dr. Peter Venkman — Dr. Pete. I still wonder sometimes if it was too soon. But he has become quite a good kitty and a very silly stripy boi, very different from Vinz, and maybe that's its own kind of answer.
Dr. Pete. He's a menace.
The Reckoning
Two Years Later
The day Vinz passed, I found out I had COVID. Again. Which meant I missed the dragonboat race I had been training for — which was the following Saturday and Sunday. I also missed the traditional Indian wedding I had been invited to that Friday. I was sick and grieving and the world kept moving around me while I sat still inside it.
That was just the beginning.
In the months that followed, I had to let go of my navy blue car named Yoda — a 2006 Toyota Corolla I had driven for eighteen years. Eighteen years. That car had carried me through so much of my adult life, and trading it in while I was still raw from losing Vinz was its own quiet grief. I love my new car. El Rojo, a 2020 VW Jetta, orange-red and solid and mine. But he arrived wrapped in loss, and I haven't forgotten that.
Then in early July of 2025, after nearly seven years, I lost my job.
When I say that Vinz's passing marked a turning point, I mean it literally. He was the first domino. And the two years since have been a steady accumulation of loss and change and hard reckonings — the kind that don't make for a tidy narrative but do, eventually, clarify something.
Grief doesn't follow a timeline. I know that intellectually. I also know that two years in, I still reach for him in the mornings. I still sing his name sometimes, in an empty room, just to say it. And sometimes Winston does something — a gesture, a trill, a moment that feels familiar — and I call him Vinz without thinking. The name just comes out. That's grief too.
What I've found is that creativity doesn't stop for grief. If anything, it becomes more urgent and more honest. The work I've made in these two years carries something different — a directness, a refusal to waste time on things that don't matter. Vinz had a very clear sense of what mattered to him and what didn't, and he didn't pretend otherwise.
I'm trying to learn from that.
This season of my life looks hard from the outside. It is incredibly difficult right now. But something is also being clarified — about what I want to make, who I want to be, what I'm willing to fight for. A turning point doesn't have to look triumphant to be real.
I think he'd approve.
I miss him so much.
Vinz Clortho, Keymaster of Gozer, passed peacefully with assistance on May 29th, 2024 at 9:30am. He is dearly missed.
I also made a video tribute for him — backed by music, it tells the beginning of our story together: A Tribute to Vinz Clortho.
Vinz Clortho. Named after a demon dog. The softest presence I've ever known.
Miss you every single day, my love.
This post is part of an ongoing series on creativity, process, and the reality of living a creative life. If you've lost an animal who was your whole heart, I see you.
