Comic Archive: "Box of Darkness" an O.G. THEM CATS

Before there was THEM CATS, there were these cats, and, poetry both from 2021 talking about the passing of my father.

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
– Mary Oliver

TW: Grief / Comments disabled.
Written in 2021 after my father passed away, "A Box of Darkness”

It’s not easy losing a parent. Losing both? Very hard.

I’m not alone. I have my siblings still. I get to see them mid-May. I have some content to plan, comics to post, articles to write, work to do, clients to see, and a life to live.

Before I started drawing THEM CATS they way they are today, I used to draw them using a calligraphy nib tool on my reMarkable Tablet 2.

I’d write journal entries like this, then would share it with my therapist, who I call, The Therapist on Quora. I write articles on how to hack therapy there.

I had a hard time drawing myself as a human—not all the time, but most of the time.

That changed in 2017, at a workshop with the legendary (and my idol) Lynda Barry, and writer Dan Chaon at The Omega Institute where they co-taught “Writing from Workbook 52.”

And, Jesus. I’m having a “death anniversary” of the passing of my late father, who was a lovable lummox.

How do you process loss?

You write. You draw comics. You do both. But it’s hard when it’s too personal. One thing Lynda encouraged me to do—and others in the class—was to draw myself as an animal. I drew myself as a fox, but blindfolded I looked like a racoon in one of the exercises. Drawing myself as a dog didn’t work, but somehow drawing myself as a cat was better.

My dad passed away May 8th at 8:12 a.m. one morning. I was holding his hand as his spirit lifted. I said the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and then, I could feel lightness. I write a poem about it here too:

For Dad, May 8th, 2021

He left us on a bright sunny morning,
I was holding his hand and looking at the reflected light off the pool from the window.

My father passed away peacefully, and we can only hope similarly.

As he was dying
I told him it would be
certainly fine
if he wasn't around anymore.

That I’d be okay.
That he could go any time.

But it'd be impossible to convince a person like my dad—who was hellbent
on showing up.

My father was a professional at it.
These are people who are there
in an audience watching you,

these are the people who are
waiting in the car
as you get out of your therapy appointments,

these are the people who walk you home
at night because they want
to see you home safely,

and this was my father.

I do not have this person in my life anymore.
I do not know if you know how painful it feels.

But I’ll tell you:

It's like seeing a mountain blown to smithereens.
It as if the Empire State Building was leveled.

It is like a vast sea all dried up—only to see the dead carcasses, and a
desolate sea floor.

This is what it feels like to lose someone so uncannily steady, and consistent.

No matter how angry or imperfect my father was,
no matter how embarrassed

—because he wasn't like other dads—is immaterial.

What is material is that he showed up.
He showed the fuck up even if he was tired,
even if he was uncomfortable around people,
even if he had other places to be,
a promise was a promise.

He kept his word 99% of the time.
He showed up 100% of the time.

So as he was dying, I stayed by his side, because,

if he saw me into this world,
I was going to show up
and see him out.

And so I did for him as he had done for me,

I felt my feet
firmly glued to the ground
I wasn't scared or sad for him,

I knew his time was coming,
and I knew
he was only a breath away from his spirit lifting into the air.

I said the Our Father for him,

and rightfully so—
to help him up, and out into the next world.

To wish him peace
and love in the next.

-For William Francis McCarthy III