Little Paw

Little Paw never asked for much.

Not a home. Not a name. Not a guarantee.

Just a little space in the world to exist… and maybe a moment of peace between storms.

He moved quietly through the yard like he understood something the rest of us forget—that survival isn’t loud. It’s patient. It’s alert. It’s instinct sharpened by hunger, by cold, by nights that don’t care whether you make it to morning or not.

There was something about him though. Not just another passing presence. He stayed close enough to be seen, but far enough to stay safe. That balance… that distance… that was his language.

He was the runt of the litter.
The only one that made it from Conina’s first litter.

Small. Timid. Careful.

But still here.

And that alone says something about him.

He was a sweet, kind-hearted cat.

And despite everything he had to go through, he loved to be loved.

He was a little spoiled too… and that was a good thing.

I wanted him to be.

Not long ago, he had a health scare.

I had him treated. I had him vaccinated.

And during that time, a storm and freeze hit out of nowhere while he was still sick.

So I sheltered him.

I put him in a cage near the entrance, somewhere safer.

And I threw his uncle Shadow in there with him too, to protect him.

They both made it.

Shadow and Little Paw were close.

Always playing. Always around each other.

Shadow showing him the ropes.

They showed love to each other in the way animals do—quiet, constant, without needing anything more.

And Little Paw made it through all of that.

He didn’t just survive it—he came back stronger. Healthier. Bigger. You could see it in him. He was starting to fill out, starting to look like he might actually make it past just surviving… into something more stable.

March 3, 2026. 8:00 a.m. breakfast—Little Paw (front), Rezzy (middle), Shadow (back). Rezzy—named after resilience—is also mentioned in the Operating Without a Manual series.

I had even been looking into getting him a collar.

That’s where things were heading.

The day before he went missing, I held him in my arms.

I told him I loved him.

My dad says he got to hug him too before this happened.

Little Paw was now accustomed to love. Both sharing and receiving.

And those moments are real. They happened. No one can take that from him.

Or from us.

It’s been five days.

I wasn’t home at the time.

My dad heard a sound.

Something pulled him to look out the window.

He saw a German Shepherd in our yard, sniffing around.

Then he saw it dart toward the brush in the vacant neighboring lot—high, thick brush.

He watched it circle the area… and then take off.

But something still pulled at him to go look.

So he did.

And that’s when he found the remains.

Black and white fur.

Hardly anything left to identify.

I didn’t want to believe it was Little Paw.

So I looked past the details at first.

But the truth is the truth.

Things matched.

I even had it looked at from different eyes.

And I ran photos of the remains through analysis.

It confirmed what I already knew.

It was a cat.

I found what was left not far from the porch.

We buried him.

We asked God to be merciful. To receive him.

To give him peace that this world didn’t.

And I’m almost certain it was him.

The white chest.
The small white patch of fur next to where his nose should have been.
The whiskers.

Even the details you don’t think you’d recognize… you do.

I could even smell him.

Even with the body decomposed, I knew his scent.

And maybe that sounds strange to someone else—but it isn’t.

When you’re around them enough, you know.

I knew the texture of his fur… the way it was softer, a little fluffier than the other cats around here.

The details line up too closely to ignore.

And that’s what makes this harder.

Because this wasn’t just loss.

It was violence.

And it didn’t start with him.

Timothy showed up with his paw torn up.

His paw is dangling, and I can’t catch him to get him treated.

At the time, I didn’t know what had happened.

Now I do.

Diamond—his mother, and Little Paw’s grandmother—has been missing longer than usual.

I believe she’s gone too.

And when you start putting it together, you realize this has been happening.

Not once.

Not randomly.

But over time.

Mitts.

Gigi.

Lovey.

Cats we knew. Cats we cared about.

I searched for them.

I called places.

I made the effort.

Nothing came of it.

I was about to get Lovey vaccinated.

I had just received vouchers for her.

The next day she was gone.

Dogs have been coming through this area. Packs of them. Moving in and out. Unpredictable. Sometimes weeks apart. Sometimes days in a row. Sometimes different ones.

They’ve been coming into our yard since my mother was alive.

She had a scare or two with them.

They’ve barked and snarled at a caged stray cat I was trying to nurse back to health.

The stray that showed up. He later passed. Even while sheltered in this cage, we caught dogs outside barking and harassing him and drove them off.

They’ve come close enough to be a threat.

And when they show up, it’s chaos.

Then they disappear like nothing happened.

It’s hard to get animal control to do anything or to get here in time.

By the time anything could be done, they’re already gone.

They vanish.

And they come back at random.

You can’t plan for it.

You can’t time it.

You just live in the gap between when they come and when they don’t.

And Little Paw got caught in that gap.

He didn’t deserve that.

He didn’t deserve that.

None of them did.

That’s not what defined him.

That’s not how he moved through the world.

He was careful. Gentle. A survivor.

And he was finally getting a chance to be more than that.

And maybe that’s what makes it cut deeper.

Because it wasn’t just survival anymore.

He was starting to live.

I don’t want his story to end with what happened to him.

Because that’s not who he was.

He was the one that made it when the others didn’t.

The one that fought through sickness and came back stronger.

The one that had someone looking out for him.

The one that was finally on his way to something better.

He was here.

He existed.

And for a brief stretch of time… he wasn’t invisible.

He was never invisible to us.

He was family.

We looked forward to seeing him on the porch when we arrived home.

The first to greet us.

And he was loved.

This is for Little Paw.

Little Paw is also mentioned in:
Precisely Located: Moments of Purpose
Good Fruit, Bad Fruit

Four days later, it happened again.

Timothy

March 26, 2026 — Four days after Little Paw
I Didn’t Get the Chance

When I first saw him, he was from Diamond’s last litter—her third.

He was small. Cute.

He reminded me of Mitts, but with a little stripe on his nose.

So at first, I called him Skunk Nose.

He would come when I called him, but it never really fit him.

It was like he knew I was talking to him… but also knew that wasn’t his name.

There was a look he’d give, like, you can do better than that.

So I tried something else.

I said, how about Timothy?

And he reacted.

His eyes lit up. He got more attentive.

Like that one landed.

Like that one was his.

So Timothy stuck.

And that’s how intelligent he was.

He knew.

And he was sweet.

I was already planning to catch him.

I had just done it with another one—Kit.

She’s from Diamond’s second litter.

She keeps to herself. Moves alone. Takes care of herself. Smart.

I got her into a pet carrier.

She was cautious, but she let her guard down for a moment.

I took her to the back, inside the gated area where I’m feeding them now.

As soon as I opened the carrier, she darted out.

But she understood.

She came back.

Now she eats there with the others.

It worked.

And watching her, I realized I could do the same with Timothy.

That was the plan.

I was going to leave the carrier out with food, wait for him to go in, and close it.

Take him to the vet.

As I mentioned earlier, Timothy had already shown up with his paw badly injured.

I couldn’t catch him in time.

At the time, I didn’t know what had happened.

Now I do.

It’s been four days since we buried Little Paw.

We buried Timothy this morning.

I fed him last night.

I made sure he ate.

He knew I was taking care of him.

He didn’t feel comfortable with me too close, but he was calm with me about five feet away.

He would blink when I spoke to him.

I didn’t get the chance.