This has been a rough week. On Saturday, I lost my cat of sixteen years. I’d had him since he was a tiny, sick kitten, all hair, tail, and misery. He’d come in a box with several other kittens to be euthanized. I took all three of them home. Two of them didn’t make it, but Cluny did. He almost lost his eye to a viral ulcer. I found him a home after he was well, and another potential illness arose than turfed him right back to my house. The second time, he never left.

Until this weekend.

I’ll miss him.

All of this hit me while I was redrafting some material for my ghost story, Flipping. In those opening chapters, there’s a funeral, and the MC deals with his feelings about death, love, and what it is to face losing something he loves very much. I’m not sure I’ve gone a day this last week without crying over that story in some way. It’s a story with a lot of humor and heart, but as one of the character’s says, “there are some aches that transcend death”. There are some aches that won’t stay rooted in one part of my mind. They spill out into my creative work and plant themselves there. I hope they grow into something beautiful when they flower. Right now, though, they prick like thorns.

Million Word Madness  2,535