Since we were little kids, my brother Ryan and I have had cats. Over the years we’ve had many cats and there have been a few that carried us through many chapters of life—ones that were truly our best friends and companions. I can remember the day we met each of our cats. I can also remember the day we said goodbye to them, too.
When I was 15, my brother Ryan adopted two small kittens named Dante and Virgil. Dante was grey and Virgil was orange. I remember the first time I met them at his apartment in Baltimore. They were tiny and hiding under the bed. I knelt down and said hello to their beaming eyes as they stared widely and unsure at a stranger. Ryan always had a way with animals and more specifically cats. He loved those kittens and was so excited to have these two brothers to keep him company as he embarked on the next chapter of his life.
As life would happen, Ryan lost possession of his cats a few years later. He was devastated. We talked on the phone nearly every day and he was beside himself. He couldn’t imagine his life without his cats and he knew he had to do everything in his power to get them back. And he did. He spent days, weeks and months contacting lawyers, flying back for court cases and doing everything he could to fight for them. He spent thousands of dollars and was grief stricken over the possibility that he’d never see them again.
He was faced with a decision that would be impossible to make which was he had to choose. He could only have one of his cats and even though he loved them both, Dante was Ryan’s cat. They were bonded in a way I’ve never seen an animal and person fuse before. To know Ryan is to know Dante.
For 15 years, I’ve watched my brother prioritize Dante above all else, especially himself. At times when Dante needed help, Ryan sacrificed his own well-being and comfort for his friend Dante. When I would look after Dante when Ryan was away, he would roam my halls in the night wailing and crying out for Ryan. When I held him, he would study my face and listen intently at the way I said his name. I could see in his eyes that he recognized the familiarity of Ryan as my sibling and felt comforted by that. Every time I held him, he would place his paw on my face. I always felt that the two were correlated.
I’ve never seen a person love their cat, rather their friend, the way Ryan loved Dante. Until the very end, Ryan fought for him. He raised money so he could have life-saving surgery and rode the train to sit by his side every day. Dante loved Ryan. He was his entire world and Dante was Ryan’s.
Rest in peace, Dante.
