The Refill

I’ve been mulling over this question since Cutter died on November 5, 2025: How do I explain what he did for the colony?

Because it wasn’t just “he helped.” It was… he expanded my ability to love.

I don’t know how to explain it. Think, I had my own natural capacity, right? And then I met him and suddenly the container I could hold love in was… twice as big.

And for the first few weeks after he passed, I was still running on overflow. Love reserves, you could call it. Like love had spilled out of my heart and soaked into the walls of my body and I was wringing it out for the cats like a towel.

But here’s the part nobody tells you: When the person who pours into you is gone… your ability to pour out changes.

Not because you stop loving. Not because you quit caring. But because your system isn’t being refilled anymore.

And lately I’ve been face-to-face with that.

As he got sick, I thought the silence was going to be loudest in the obvious places: when he couldn’t walk out to the cat shack anymore, when he couldn’t come stand on the porch, when I couldn’t turn my head and see him there.

I thought that silence would slice me clean in half.

But what I didn’t realize is… it wasn’t true silence yet. Even when the colony wasn’t his obsession, he still fed it. He still poured love into it and into me. Even when he was weak. He would still let me sprint into the house like:

“LOVE! GUESS WHAT! I finally pet an orange blur!”

He would of celebrated me, “No way! How’d you do it?” He’d of joked about the lore of the orange blurs, how they all share one brain cell, and how petting one was no small feat.

The first time I pet an orange blur was shortly after Cutter died. And I got that giddy feeling in my stomach followed immediately by the thought:

“Oh, I can’t wait to tell Cutter!”

I even moved in excitement toward the cat shack door to go tell him… before reality caught up with me and the drop in my stomach anchored me to the floor.

That’s where the magic lived. Not in the big moments. In the everyday ones.

In how he received my excitement and fed into it with his spirit, long after his body immobilized and his mind succumbed to the final days of his illness.

Because it wasn’t just task support. It was love support. Love that says: “I don’t understand why you’re doing all this, but I understand you, and I’m with you.”

And there is a difference.

A violent difference.

There is no one else on earth who would’ve backed this dream in this way. Some people might help with a task or a donation. But they wouldn’t bring that. They wouldn’t bring the part where I felt held while I was doing it. He made me feel like I wasn’t insane for caring this much, like my devotion wasn’t embarrassing or excessive, it was just… love.

This man built cat boxes. He helped with the recovery room. He carried food. He did vet runs. He dug graves. He is the reason the Cat Shack has electricity and why they are warm right now.

And when the recovery room was open, he’d come home from work and sit with those cats because I couldn’t stand the thought of them going eight hours without seeing a human.

Like… who does that?

Who walks into a room full of trapped feral boys and is like: “Hey lil dudes. I’m here. You’re not alone.” After twelve hours at work.

Cutter did.

Not because he was obsessed with the cats. But because he was obsessed with me; and he loved what I loved because he loved me.

That’s what people don’t get.

They think support looks like: “Sure, love. That’s nice.”

No.

Support looked like him being in it. Sitting on the floor. Being present. Not rushing me. Not making me feel ridiculous for caring this much.

And Jerry… he loved Jerry. And Jerry loved him.

Jerry would press his body into this man’s leg like if he had arms it would be a hug. Jerry wasn’t like that. I swear, part of Jerry’s decline was grief. He was Cutter’s favorite little dude.

And then Cutter was gone.

And then Jerry was gone.

And I buried Jerry by myself.

And that was the moment it hit me in a way I still don’t have language for.

Because when we buried colony cats before, Cutter wasn’t just helping me with the shovel.

He was helping me survive the grief.

I know when Jerry died, if Cutter had been here; he’d be wrecked, yes. But then he’d see me trying not to cry, apologizing for crying, and he’d put his hand on my chest, encouraging me to let it out. He always knew where the universe felt like it was trying to pour out of me and when I was trying to hold it in.

That. That magic.

And when I dug that grave alone, the silence didn’t just hurt. It weighed down my very being.

Because I wasn’t just burying Jerry. I was burying him in a world where Cutter wasn’t standing beside me anymore.

That whole era, my life with Cutter wasn’t just me dragging myself through the hard parts… It was me being loved through them.

Because that’s the real loss. I didn’t just lose a person. I lost the refill. I lost the “come inside and tell me everything” place. My grief support. My joy witness. I lost the steady, everyday love that turned my care into something sustainable, something overflowing.

And now?

The silence where he used to stand isn’t quiet.

It’s screaming.

And the echo of it hurts deep in my bones.