Remembering Holly (1995-2011)

Secret Dead Blog lost a treasured member of its team today: Holly, our 16-year-old black domestic shorthaired cat.

Holly (named for Buddy Holly) has been around since the beginning. I brought her home on Sunday, March 19, 1995, the same week I was promoted to the position of staff writer at Philadelphia Magazine. So for as long as I've been earning a living as a writer, Holly's been by my side. She used to curl up around my neck as I'd write short stories and magazine pieces, sometimes wrapping herself around my computer monitor, just to make sure I stayed focused and on task. She'd knock over the wastebasket in the bathroom whenever my attention would drift. She'd steal my ties from the rack (as if to say, Someday, kid, you're going to have a job where you won't need to wear a tie). She'd growl and hiss at any human females who happened to visit my home. (You ain't got time for the dames. Write, damn it!) She even tried to dismember the human female who would eventually become my wife; this initial skirmish turned into a years-long battle of the wills that settled into an uneasy truce... then, finally, grudging mutual respect. Eventually, Holly accepted the Human Female Who Became My Wife as part of the Secret Dead Blog team, and even tolerated it when I and the human female produced two children. But inside, Holly knew her true place; her claws were sunk deep into the operation.

Holly would curl up into a little furry, purring black ball as I wrote Secret Dead Men in Brooklyn back in the late 90s. (She never said as much, but I think she appreciated her cameo appearance in that novel). She was there when I worked on The Wheelman in Philadelphia, as well as every other novel since. I used to joke with the Human Female Who Became My Wife that Holly was my "office manager." But now I realize that it's true. Holly was a constant in my creative landscape. No matter what other cool things she could have been doing, like hunting or killing or destroying... she chose to spend most of her time with my dumb ass, keeping me company as I hit my daily word count. And now that she's gone, the office doesn't feel the same without her.

She was a great cat. The perfect writer's cat, in fact. A born killer down to the marrow of her bones, but patient and sweet, too. You would have loved her. Unless you were a Human Female, in which case she would have probably tried to kill you.