How did you become mine, little man? I guess we should thank your lovely first mom Samantha, who intuited that I needed for her kitty to become my kitty when I moved out of the house on Ridgefield Road. Or we could back up and say it was Sasha, who decided I should to be roommates with her childhood friend Samantha when I came back down south after six years in New York. Or we could give credit to the New York City Teaching Fellows, who realized I would be a great teacher and put me in a program with the wonder that is Sasha. Or we could say it was that poster on the downtown A train, because without that, I wouldn’t have even known about the existence of the NYCTF program.
Let’s do that. Let’s say it was the poster. I feel like you were a long time coming to me.
What a handsome devil. Blue eyes and white feet. A pink nose with a splotch of black that spilled over onto your lip. Did you flinch when Mother Nature was daubing at your face?
And the most non-discriminating lover there ever was. If Burt Bacharach had a code, you lived by it. If a lap was created, you’d climb into it. You were clear that everybody could use some of what you had to give. When Dad came stay with me, he’d call, “Amy! Come here and take a look at this!” I’d head into the living room to find Dad supine on the pull-out couch and you lying square on his chest, your face in his face. “This cat LOVES me,” he’d say. And you did. You loved my dad. Just so happens you loved everybody.
You even loved Boonie. And then Redford. And they both kinda tried to eat you. What a mensch.
When I got you, at 12 years old, you were…well, let’s just say you would have shopped in the Big & Tall department. You lumbered. Over the next four years, you lost seven pounds and started to slink around like a German shepherd. A nine-pound German shepherd.
It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming. You were my Renal Failure Kitty. But coming home to your cold corpse was harsh. I wish I could say you were curled serenely in your spot on the back of the easy chair, but you weren’t. You were on the couch, stiff, with a look on your face like in the last moment you had glimpsed Death and wished you could turn around. I feel guilty I wasn’t there for you in your final moments, but I kinda get the feeling you waited until I left on purpose. You probably knew I couldn’t handle it.
So now. Well, now there’s no more scooping litter. I won’t miss that. No more sprinting, dripping, out of the shower to rescue you from Redford’s adoring maw. No more cleaning up piss off the floor, the bathmat, the kitchen table, Redford’s face. No more having to erase your attempts to update my facebook status.
Hm. I miss you, buddy. I mean, my lap’s so cold.
Love,
Amy