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  • euthanizing the family cat on boxing day

    over christmas dinner, my mother tells me that she is worried about her cat, well, our cat, the family cat. the cat, named gypsy, is over twenty years old and she has begun to slow. she is thin and not so quick as she once was.

    my mother worries over turkey and cranberries that our cat is suffering. she asks when we would know that it would time for her to be “put to sleep”. i say that i feel like if she’s worried, maybe we should see about it and make some phone calls. if i am honest, i will recognize that i have noticed the slowed steps, the quieter mews, the thinning fur. in my heart, it’s time.

    my mother says she will think about it. i see the pain in her eyes. this isn’t just a cat we are talking about and the words go unspoken between us.

    gypsy was my father’s cat too.

    gypsy was his baby and boy, my father fussed over her. he would sing to her and meow to her, he would turn the kitchen sink on for her so she could have a fresh drink of water. my father bought toys, and blankets and pillows for her. a trip to the grocery store usually meant coming back with at least one new cat treat or some new toy.

    my father loved cats. he fed every stray he could. gypsy adopted my parents in 2009 by simply coming around hoping for a few free meals and she got a really nice little life with a family who loved her dearly.

    when we talk about the cat, we talk about him too, but we just don’t say it.

    the morning of boxing day, i get a call from my mother, the cat is doing terribly, unable to stand, and she is no longer drinking fluid. it is time.

    we meet at the veterinarian’s office at 1400 on boxing day. i had plans to stay in my pajamas and read the disturbing books i got for christmas and eat christmas chocolate, but instead i’m standing in a veterinary practice where it smells like medicine and loss.

    i don’t want to cry, but i do. the nice lady asks if we want the cat’s ashes back and my mother is confused, she doesn’t know how to respond to that. i say we want the ashes back with more sorrow in my voice than i intend, and my mother shoots me a look.

    with a quavering voice i say, “she should be with dad”.

    my mother’s mouth is a grim line and she nods, signing the papers for gypsy’s ashes to be returned to us. they say they will call us in two weeks or so.

    they take gypsy to have an iv inserted into her thin leg. gypsy’s eyes are sunken, her nose is dry. she is almost unable to lift her head. she is so old.

    saying goodbye to her was, in a way, like saying goodbye to my father. the medicine goes in, she takes a few heavy breaths and she is gone. her eyes are fixed well before the medication reaches her heart. she is gone. another december loss.

    my mother fusses with gypsy’s blanket and cat carrier, now empty.

    they come and take gypsy’s little body.

    as we leave, i notice the little rainbow light lit up on the counter of the veterinary office, signifying that we have been saying goodbye, that our cat made her way across “the rainbow bridge”.

    i used to think the concept of the rainbow bridge was stupid. but i find myself comforted by the light, in a way. my throat is dry and i’m too warm under my wool and leather jacket that says “budweiser” on the back. i am sad, but i am also grateful.

    what a privilege to have loved and been loved by this tiny little cat.

    what a privilege to feel the love of an animal.

    in times of loss, i am comforted by some quotes:

    “now that you live here inside my chest, anyplace we sit can be a mountaintop” – rumi

    “blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” – matthew 5:4

    and i saw this reel on instagram called “farewell”:

    “though now my body has slowed, it was a privilege to be granted a slowing body at all, both the world and i have aged in circles not in lines, i have watched it change, and i have changed with it, returning to familiar places with wiser eyes, but don’t worry, there’s mercy that comes with old age, a quiet tenderness, one final gentle forgiving silence, as this farewell is the world’s circular grace, often mistaken for cruelty” – @sin.xline

    it is hard to say goodbye, even when it is time.

    so, goodbye, little kitty, i sure did love you.

    i hope dad kept a bed warm for you, and that you’re together now.

  • god rest ye merry gentlemen

    i’ve been dreaming lately about the old tuberculosis sanatorium at the edge of town. my grandfather used to work there. i dreamed about being lost there in the dark and in the fog with only a radio stuck between stations, kind of like the one carried by james in silent hill 2.

    december is a time of loss for me, and the air of the holy holiday remains tinged with bitter grief. i had the idea to record my own version of “god rest ye merry gentlemen”, my favourite christmas hymn, and wondered what it might sound like coming from an old radio when one was lost at tranquille.

    1 corinthians 15: 27-45

    god rest ye merry, gentlemen,
    let nothing you dismay,
    remember christ our savior
    was born on christmas day
    to save us all from satan’s pow’r
    when we were gone astray

    o tidings of comfort and joy,
    comfort and joy;
    o tidings of comfort and joy.

    from god our heav’nly father
    a blessed angel came
    and unto certain shepherds
    brought tidings of the same;
    how that in bethlehem was born
    the son of god by name.

    o tidings of comfort and joy,
    comfort and joy;
    o tidings of comfort and joy.

    “fear not,” then said the angel,
    “let nothing you affright;
    this day is born a savior
    of a pure virgin bright,
    to free all those who trust in him
    from satan’s pow’r and might.”

    o tidings of comfort and joy,
    comfort and joy;
    o tidings of comfort and joy.

    the shepherds at those tidings
    rejoiced much in their mind,
    and left their flocks afeeding,
    in tempest, form, and wind,
    and went to bethlehem straightway,
    this blessed babe to find.

    o tidings of comfort and joy,
    comfort and joy;
    o tidings of comfort and joy.

    now to the lord sing praises
    all you within this place,
    and with true love and brotherhood
    each other now embrace;
    this holy tide of christmas
    all other doth deface.

    o tidings of comfort and joy,
    comfort and joy;
    o tidings of comfort and joy.

    released December 25, 2025
    traditional christmas hymn
    recorded december 24, 2025
    in a bathroom in kamloops, bc

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  • excerpt from a christmas card from sweden

    i am sent a christmas card from sweden. i cry when i open it, standing at the stove, drinking black coffee with messy hair and a stomach ache. he was anxious about it arriving in time for christmas and i told him i didn’t care, but he did anyways. it arrives in time.

    the letter comes with his messy handwriting all over it, scrawled bible verses, just like the ones i sent to him when first we started to write.

    i remember friends calling in sick to my birthdays, blowing me off for movie nights and hangouts, and then dumping me completely when my father died. i cut myself open for people in my life who left me when i needed them most. and this swedish aries, who burns with a kind of fire that i am unfamiliar with, travelled the world for me. crossing time and ocean to hang out in my room and make friends with my cats and walk on beaches to look for bones and feathers.

    he says it is nothing to him. he says he doesn’t mind. he says he’ll do it again. he said he’s coming back. back to canada, back to me, and my little house and little life full of vhs tapes and cameras and thrift shops and handmade candles and soaps.

    i say i’m nothing special and he says i’m everything.

    he says it simply, no bullshit.

    he sends me christmas cards. we talk about god and grief.

    he knows the loss that haunts my heart because it haunts his too.

    i see it on his face and in his eyes sometimes.

    sometimes we talk about fathers. sometimes we don’t. we hold hands and eat brownies and look at bird taxidermy in the museum. we kiss by the old church and a lady on the street takes photos of us and says we are beautiful.

    we are beautiful.

    i do not feel so beautiful when i’m ugly crying by the stove clutching my christmas card from sweden.

    i don’t know if this healing and i don’t know if this is happiness, but, god, i hope it is.

    merry christmas.

  • my mother

    my mother. when i think of her, i think of cigarettes and french manicures. i think about her unwavering green eyes that i was always jealous that i did not inherit. my eyes, the same blue as my father’s. i think about my mother’s huge purse with an iphone inside. i think about her face the morning we watched my father die together.

    how many years had it been since i’d spent a night with my mother? and the one we spent was curled together on a rollout hospital cot listening to my father’s breathing slow. i think about her strength and her viciousness in the same moment and it takes my breath away.

    this beautiful complicated woman, my mother. she has always been my greatest adversary, the voice i hear inside my own head as my inner monologue. the leo she is, sits across the zodiac from my aquarius, just as she has sat across from me in life. she is and always has been governed by fire, the same rage that burns inside me, also burns inside her. but i am an air sign, i’m the oxygen that fire needs to burn. am i her adversary too?

    we go out today to do some shopping. we go to our favourite thrift store and she buys me candles and a vintage dress. we go for lunch and talk about my struggles and hers, too. the world rejected her just as it has rejected me. when i was diagnosed with autism, she declined to see it at first, and now, it is obvious where it came from. her brain, just like mine, fixated on justice that doesn’t exist, seeing patterns where others see oblivion.

    how can we be so similar and yet so dfferent? this dance of the mother and the daughter that we do has always seemed like a struggle for who will come out victorious. there are no girls weekends, not with us. but we make sauerkraut and pierogi and borscht. we talk about the abuse my grandmother went through, and then later dished out. we talk about the war and trauma.

    we have such a strange relationship.

    when we visit, we sit on the front step and smoke cigarettes and drink black coffee together and yet it can feel sometimes like we send messages back and forth from other planets.

    she is beautiful, but of course, like with everything, she doesn’t see it. i notice it today as she is handing me her roasting pan. i’m the one who cooks christmas dinner. a tradition passed on now to me. my mother talks about the best way to roast brussels sprouts and i realize how beautiful she is as she prattles on over carrots and potatoes.

    i realize how much i’m looking forward to christmas dinner with her this year.

    it’s such an odd feeling because there have been times since the death of my father where i haven’t been able to find much to look forward to.

    she sends me home with bags of food and a thrift store dress.

    i love her, so much, my mother.

  • into it: imchibeat, simon emanuel – “1704”

    so, not unlike the infamous/famous calvin klein perfume by the same name, you could call it an “obsession” with how i feel about the new track “1704” from swedish producer imchibeat and swedish rapper simon emanuel.

    ya girl has a bit of a thing for swedish hip-hop at the moment. it started with being introduced to the random bastards collective by some of my swedish friends and there’s something about that sound that just hits for me. this song in particular has scratched a very particular itch of mine, and i featured it on my december 2025 playlist.

    i’ve written about imchibeat before and as mentioned in that previous bit of writing – he has a very excellent way of creating these very interesting and emotional tracks – and “1704” is not an exception from this. this is gonna sound weird maybe but “1704” reminds me a lot of burial (one of my all time favourite artists)- just this very pensive emotional self reflection dripping off the production.

    so like, this emotional production of imchi’s is then overlaid with simon emanuel’s very smooth and just as self-reflective lyricism and composition, my guy simon can fucking write. of course, the song is in swedish, and i do understand that most of the people who come across this blog, may not read or understand swedish, but i do challenge you to go check it out and just let the song wash over you.

    “be för staden” is said several times through the song and it means “pray for the city“, and how fitting. i first listened to this track on a difficult day as i walked through the downtown streets of my city, i walked by signs for new restaurants, pretty girls wearing fashionable clothing, people shooting up, graffiti advertising drugs and drug dealers with the hookup butted up against flyers for bible study classes or alcoholics anonymous meetings. it was one of those grey rainy days that matched my mood perfectly, you know the kind where you breathe in and fill your lungs with the smell of the city, gasoline, and petrichor, cheap perfume, cigarette smoke, someone smoking weed somewhere, food cooking.. just this heady aroma of people together. one can be easily overcome by the life and decay all around us – absolution, deliverance, hell, and horror existing in this simultaneous and never ending struggle for dominance. and i love it.

    the same bitter romance that plays out in my city’s streets plays out perfectly in “1704” – there’s this grief, and loneliness in imchi’s production that stands right alongside the stubborn pride and self awareness of simon’s bars. i cannot stress enough how much this song has been on my mind. i play it over and over and translate the lyrics myself (though i do thank imchi for helping me with some words i couldn’t immediately hear as my swedish isn’t great yet).

    i don’t want to sound like some kind of crybaby or nothin, but i feel so very grateful to live in this time and to be able to experience music like this. i’ve felt very alone in my life, it happens when you grow up a fucking weirdo, an outcast, someone forever doomed to live on the edges, the fringes, and when i hear music like this, it makes me feel less alone knowing that other people have felt like i have, have lived what i have, and i think that’s special. not everyone experiences things like this. finding those who have, those who get it? it’s a headrush.

    spotify link

    anyways, it means a lot.

    thanks simon and imchi for the cool tunes.