HEAVENLY PRIDE.

As I sit up here, watching life on the silver screen, I see that my sister was as dysregulated as I would have been when my servant was away for two nights. Amazingly, though, when the others were away, my sister spent most of her time lying beside a shirt belonging to the other male human.

I know that if I was still down on Earth, my servant would have lain out a shirt of his for me to lie on and I would have been able to take his side of the bed.

I saw my servant load his small, carry-on compatible suitcase into the rear of his car and begin the drive to the hospital. The other male member of the house had offered to take him, but my servant preferred to go by himself. As much as he loved my company and I was soothing for him, and he would have taken me with him, if he could have. The sky was cloudy, but I knew that he wanted to reach his destination safely so that he could return safely to where the memories of he and I are.

During the night, between reading chapters of his book about another member of his tribe (my servant has a family and a tribe, you see) he sat on that device that makes a loud noise, to prepare for his procedure. He was then woken up early in the morning for another drink.

When he arrived in the procedure room, he proceeded to tell his doctor, who loves horses, about the horse that his grandfather had and about how much he loved me. His doctor was also impressed by his special talent.

After he awoke, I was pleased that he decided to have the procedure when he did. I know the pain of me crossing the rainbow bridge caused him to almost not care if he crossed it not long after me, but I remembered him telling his cardiologist that he’d had 35 years of not knowing why he was different, 11 years of accepting and embracing his autism, and that he wanted another 46 years of positive autistic living ahead of him. His cardiologist liked that attitude. His gastroenterologist told him that she had removed a 17mm polyp from his colon and that it could have turned cancerous after around eight years, and there was no way I wanted him to join me that way.

The next day, he was back to where we had been together, and I know that one thing he missed, despite the other man welcoming him home was for me to hear the scrunching of his tyres under the gravel and for me to stand, stretch my legs and arch my back and for him to unlock the door, walk inside, and after locking it, say, “Hey, Nutsy, Hey,” as he came to sit down and his fingers stroked that sweet spot between my ears and I would jump onto his lap and press my belly up against his and purr contentedly knowing all was well in the world, again. One day, but until that day.

• Nutsy was my cat. The love that Nutsy and I shared transcends the rainbow bridge and a pillow with his image on it lies beside me on my bed.
• I would like to acknowledge TzeLin Sam, Kyomi O’Connor, Kirsty Kendall and numerous others in this story.