I first encountered Cat Moore not long
after I was diagnosed with Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis - the same
disease that claimed her life at the age of 35, a few days before
Christmas, 2013.
In the aftermath of my diagnosis I had
searched online for fellow sufferers and support groups. It soon
became apparent that sharing an illness with someone doesn't mean
that you will find them tolerable, or want to listen to their awful
survivors poetry, or endure their incessant prattling about “god's
plan.”
In desperation I typed PSC into the
search bar of the blogging website Live Journal. Two user accounts
came up. One of them belonged to Cat.
Although our respective geographical
locations (I live in the south-east of England/Cat lived in
Vancouver, Canada) meant that we would have never crossed paths had
it not been for our common ailment, our relationship was not defined
by it. I like to think that, had we met under different
circumstances, we would have been friends anyway.
Cat was a tiny, pale, strange looking
girl. Her thick glasses and her fondness for wearing berets gave her
the appearance of Buddy Holly reborn as an art-house film director.
She was a self-confessed introvert who yearned to come out of herself
- somehow this inner conflict made her a larger than life character,
in way that was endearingly off-kilter. She often seemed to find
herself in bizarre and unusual situations that were tinged with
pathos:
One of my favourite Cat Moore stories
concerns the time she took part in Team Make-Out – an event in
which strangers engage in kissing and light petting on public
transport. With no male partner available she ended-up in “an awkward, sloppy, and intensely gum-flavoured” clinch with another
girl, which took place under the watchful gaze of a CCTV camera.
Cat loved music: Spiritualized,
My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Stereolab... One of
the highlights of her life was travelling to Austin, Texas, in 2010
for the SXSW festival. She later described her experience in a single
paragraph of breathless prose:
“My time in Austin was a
mindblowing blur of movies, rule-breaking, food, IFC happy hours,
meeting people, Motorhead, more movies, Broken Social Scene,
weirdness, and fun. I got a swag bag, got sick, got better, got
drunk, got a few shirts at Mondo Tees, and even got starstruck once
or twice. (Bill Murray on the red carpet for Get Low.) I did and saw
so much, there's no way I can regret the things I didn't get to do or
see. Besides, they're on the list for next time. And there will be a
next time.”
However, her main passion was for the
cinema. She worked at multiple theatres around her home town, selling
tickets, working the concession stand, cleaning the toilets. Few
people had a better excuse to succumb to fatigue, but I don't know of
anyone who worked harder than Cat did
Common interests and mutual suffering
aside, I liked Cat because she was a good person:
Her mother died in 2003. Cat spent the
remaining decade of her life in a succession of sub-par, rented apartments with
her father (always referred to as 'the Dude') who she looked after
and worried about and fretted over. Although she sometimes
entertained notions of living elsewhere and wondered whether this
might lead to a better job and a better quality of life, she was not
a martyr to her circumstances. She maintained that her decision to
stay with her father was the right one and the one that she felt most
comfortable with.
Cat had an accommodating nature – the
kind that people can take advantage of without meaning to. She
routinely put the needs of others before her own well-being. I lost
count of the number of times she would mention finding her beloved
pet, Parker J Cat, asleep on her bed and, instead of waking him up, would squeeze as best she could onto the remainder of the mattress.
Despite her illness, and the fact that
part of her bowel had been removed, she continued to indulge an
unhealthy lifestyle that included Coca Cola for breakfast, Slurpees,
fried chicken and pulled pork – all things that you really
shouldn't consume if you have PSC. I admired her for doing it; for
leading the life she wanted to live. If you can't give the grim reaper
the finger once in a while then what is the point.
We both left Live Journal around 2011.
I was disillusioned with the site. Cat, I think, was coming to terms
with having less energy. The 140 character limit of Twitter was less
draining for her than the prospect of composing lengthy blog entries.
In mid-December of 2013 I noticed that
she hadn't posted on Twitter for a couple of weeks. On the 21st
of the month I sent her a direct message:
“How are you Cat? I worry.”
When there was no reply I assumed that
she had been admitted to hospital. Her condition often seemed to
deteriorate around this time of year.
On the 5th of January, with
a heavy heart, I typed her Twitter handle into the site's search
engine and learned of her death through one of the cinemas that she
worked for. After getting in touch with one of the staff there I was
able to fill in the gaps:
Cat had been admitted to hospital
either in late November or early December, where she underwent a
number of unsuccessful surgeries that were aimed at saving her liver. Her other organs began to shut down and the consensus among her
doctors was that another surgical procedure would be too much for
her. She was suffering and her father made the decision to turn off
her life support. She died on the 20th December, 2013, the
day before I wrote to her.
When I heard the news of her death I
felt swamped by a tidal wave of grief that couldn't be expressed in
words; it was the kind that builds up inside faster than you can get
it out and is physically painful. In the days that have followed I
have felt the occasional aftershock. They always seem to catch me off
guard. My eyes filled with tears at the mention of a forthcoming new
season of Mad Men and the
thought that Cat will never know the eventual fate of Don
Draper.
I visited her Twitter account. She is
still following me. Nothing has changed and it as if she is on a long
hiatus.
I read her penultimate tweet from the
24th November:
“The good news is, I'm not dead.
The bad news? Still living this life.”
Her last written words appeared the
following day: 'Thanks!' in response to a comment posted from a
protected account.
I felt guilty that we had not
communicated more, and in more depth, since we left Live Journal.
I returned to our last flippant
exchange on Twitter (which occurred on the 3rd and 4th
November, 2013) and wished that I had said something more comforting:
Cat: Haven't got the spoons for
much today. Work and disease do not a good combo make.
Me: I'm (sic) intend to re-brand
my PSC as 'Liver Away' and market it with the help of investment from
the millionaires on 'Dragons Den'.
Cat: I'll look for you if I can
get the UK version...
I found a recent tweet – one where
she mentioned not being able to imagine a world without Lou Reed in
it. In another, that I had overlooked, she described sitting on the
couch answering email when something had “popped/snapped” inside
of her. X-rays at the hospital revealed nothing. One of the hallmarks
of having a chronic, ultimately terminal, illness is how quickly you
acclimatize to the horror of your situation. You learn to shrug off
things that would appal and disgust a normal, healthy human being.
I visited her lastfm account which had
been inactive for many years. The last track she listened to there,
way back in 2010, was The Fox In The Snow by Belle and
Sebastian. I don't think I will ever be able to hear that song again
without being reduced to a sobbing wreck.
I read her old Live Journal entries:
“I'm not afraid of dying. No sense
in fearing the inevitable, really. What's the worst that could
happen? Besides a slow, painful, lingering death that brings out the
depression and angst in everyone including yourself, that is.”
The thought that, in her final weeks,
she might have been scared, or conscious of the scale of her pain and
suffering, is unbearable to me.
I half-watched The Matrix and
wished that we lived in a computer simulation, and that somewhere in
an alternate reality Cat was still alive.
I bargained pointlessly with an
unnamed, benevolent deity for the opportunity to swap places with
her. Cat stood up to her illness. She had hopes and dreams and things
that she looked forward to. This past year I have felt like it's
enough. I am coasting along on my own diminishing momentum. I think
if a doctor said to me 'We've done all we can for you' then I would
welcome it. Cat had more to live for and she died before she was
ready. It wasn't fair.
I never met Cat in person or heard her
voice. Our strange relationship unfolded on disparate strands of
social media and the occasional email.
She leaves in her wake the faintest of
footprints. An iPod Touch (which she would periodically lose)
containing her favourite music; a few possessions in a rented
apartment.
Those who knew her in person and worked
alongside her, remember her fondly.
I remember you too Cat Moore.
“I did and saw so
much, there's no way I can regret the things I didn't get to do or
see.”
26th June
1978 - 20th December 2013
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