My cat died yesterday.

If you are not a cat person or a pet person, I suppose it can be hard to appreciate how such a creature can become a full member of one’s family.

This cat, named Rodney by employees at the shelter, was quite a character.

He was an outdoor cat, a slayer of rats half his size and an undefeated champion against all feline interlopers, of which there were many in our neighborhood.

He would lounge on the front stoops of houses several blocks away. Everyone knew him and loved him. Well, almost everyone.

When the humans in our family were engaged in some strenuous, house-spanning activity like unloading groceries, he would purposely lie in everyone’s path so he would have to be stepped over. He did this even in later years when he had become somewhat more frail.

I don’t know whether he did this out of extreme arrogance or extreme trust. Perhaps it was a mixture of both.

Never in 17 years did anyone step on him under these circumstances. His arrogance and trust were rewarded.

I have to confess that I wasn’t sure I wanted Rodney or any cat to move in with us when my wife and then-young son went looking for a feline housemate. You see, I am allergic to cats.

But my animal-loving son, who loves animals no less now that he is a grown man, wasn’t to be denied.

We decided that my basement office would be off-limits to Rodney. Of course, once he perceived that he wasn’t allowed down there, he tried to get down there at every opportunity.

He was quite stealthy and cunning about it. He would lie in wait and time his dash toward the basement perfectly, slipping through a crack in the door just as it was nearly closed.

He would often hide down there in basementy places I wasn’t keen to go. It may not surprise you to learn that I took to letting him down there voluntarily in recent years. I came to the conclusion that spending time with Rodney took precedence over my allergies.

There is an old wives’ tale that a cat will gravitate toward the person in any room who suffers from the worst cat allergies and that was true in our household.

Rodney loved to lie on my chest and belly more than he loved to lie on anyone else’s chest and belly. Cats that lie on chests and bellies are nothing unusual, but how about cats that stand on shoulders and upper backs?

When I was in a seated position, Rodney would climb me until he was standing on my shoulders. If I bent over a little, he would perch on my upper back.

He did this only to me. I have no idea why. As sick as he was near the end, he still insisted on perching on my shoulders.

As I indicated before, my tolerance of allergy symptoms grew at the same rate as my love for Rodney.

I was the one he awoke at dawn to be fed. It was the small window overlooking my desk in the basement that he would come to inform me in no uncertain terms that he was ready to be let in.

There is so much more that I could say about this complex, hilarious, often infuriating creature who came to be an integral part of our family.

At the moment, my grief over his death is immeasurable.

I have lost many dearly loved people and animals in the last nine years and what I have discovered about grief, at least in my life, is that it accumulates.

My mother’s death was soon followed by the death of a beloved uncle. My father’s death was followed by the death of one of the best dogs I have ever known.

Each time someone or something I love dies, I grieve for them all anew.

My grief over my mother’s death is now as fresh as it was nine years ago.

It is customary at this point in a column to summarize my findings, to wrap things up in a bow. I don’t have a bow right now.

What I will write is that if I were given a choice between feeling this grief and feeling nothing, I would choose grief every time.

In grief, there is the opportunity to understand myself better, as painful as that process is.

Not only is it a painful process, it is a slow one.

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Ode to a Cat