To Honor The Mighty Cheeps

As many of you know, we lost our wonderful cat Cheeps in March. He was a heck of a personality, and the condo feels smaller without him. But his health had been uneven for years, and we finally had to let him move on.

He’s the first cat I’ve ever had who actually had fans. He had a Facebook following. During the pandemic, I decided to let him and Gavin help me with promotion. I started something I called Promotion Central, and said that the staff was the cats. I’d post pictures and then write something wry, and people liked it.

Mostly, though, they liked Cheeps. He was pretty. He also had kitty charisma. And somehow, his personality got through.

He was loud, he was demanding, and he was impossible to ignore. He also had an impish side and a sense of humor.

My two remaining cats, Gavin and Angel, do not have a sense of humor. Gavin is working very hard at filling Cheepy’s shoes (okay, he didn’t wear shoes, but you know what I mean). Angel is constantly worried about everything. She wants to do things right.

Cheeps couldn’t give a rat’s flying patootie about doing things right. He expected others to do for him. He was in charge. We all danced to his (rather loud) tune.

Shortly after he died, I wrote a short story inspired by the (extremely sad) trip to the crematorium to pick up his cremains. I dedicated the story to Cheeps. And…Dean bought the story for Pulphouse. The story’s in the current issue, which you can get if you click here.

But I also did something else, and it was a bit more subconscious.

I had to curate a Storybundle this summer. We had chosen the names of the bundles back in the spring. This one was a repeat of one we’d done before, only with new writers. It’s called Cattitude.

The title is so very Cheepy. But I swear I wasn’t thinking of Cheeps as I put it together—consciously anyway. I was thinking of him subconsciously.

You see, every Storybundle gives the buyer the opportunity to donate part of the fee to charity. I wanted a cat-related charity for this bundle, so I researched a bunch of them. I kept coming back to Best Friends Animal Society. Best Friends “is dedicated to ending the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters. To help Save Them All, Best Friends works with shelters, rescue groups and our members nationwide.”

Cheepy was not a shelter cat. (Gavin and Angel were.) But Cheeps was a rescue. We got him out of a severe hoarding situation. He was clearly abused. He was afraid of feet for years, especially if they were encased in black shoes. It took him forever to warm to us, although he was very affectionate with Gavin. In his last few years, Cheeps allowed cuddling…on his terms. He finally decided to spend time hovering near us, usually on the back of the couch or a chair when one of us sat in it.

When Dean got seriously injured a year ago, Cheeps became his best friend, doing a Cheepy cuddle of staying close. It took a lot of time and a lot of love, but he had gone from being scared of everything and everyone (human, that is) to running the household.

I think every cat should have that chance. (Every dog too.) That’s what was hovering in the back of my mind as I chose the charity.

I ended up writing about the charity in the promotional material for the Storybundle, rather than heavily promoting the authors—which might not have been the best sales tactic, because the writers are wonderful. The bundle includes ebooks from T. Thorn Coyle,  Lisa Silverthorne, Christine Pope, and Anne Renwick. Ron Collins and Jeff Collins, Bonnie Elizabeth, Kari Kilgore, and Annie Reed contributed ebooks you can only find in this bundle. My contributions are one of my very favorite Kristine Grayson novels (featuring a kitten superhero—that is, a superhero who saves kittens) and a Year of the Cat volume, featuring stories from across several decades.

All about cats, of course. Great cats. Wonderful cats. Magic cats.  Opinionated cats. Cats with moxy. Rescue cats. Shelter cats. Bookstore cats. Lots and lots of cats.

The bundle is time-limited, so it’ll disappear forever this week. You have to head over there now to get all this wonderful reading, which you can get as little as $25. So head on over, and get these wonderful books. I guarantee that you’ll enjoy each and every one of them.