chantico

I have not updated this journal in some time because I don't feel right talking about anything else when there's a big, empty whole in my heart. Two days after Christmas, while sitting down to lunch, my Mom called us and managed to choke out that she found Ralph, our adored cat, dead in the hallway that morning. I have no shame in admitting I made a scene in the restaurant, tears, trying to figure out what happened, trying to call people I cared about and people who cared about him . . . grasping at straws, really, that last threads of an unweaving life already gone.

I could write paeans to this cat. He was our darling, our furbaby for real, lying between our sleeping selves as a child would, greeting us every day when we came home. I have had many cats in my life, far into the 20's, and none of them have ever come close to matching Ralph in size of personality (or body). We joked that he was a wizard who had transformed himself into a cat and decided to stay that way, so *human* were his affectations; the way he used his paws as hands, to reach up and pluck people food from your fork, or his jealousy of other cats getting pet, or even his gaze. Everyone says they have the best cat, but Ralph was the only one I knew who had *other* people saying he was the best cat (though never tell their own babies that).

When we got him, it was to help me cope with my depression. Jason hated cats and always bad, so when we walked into the animal shelter, what I asked them for, specifically and verbatim, was "a cat that acted like a dog."

The woman blinked, her eyes wandered over to the kennels. "Funny you should ask . . ."

He started purring as we approached. As he hefted all 18 pounds of him up, he immediately gave us both a kiss on the nose, a habit he perfected quite quickly and responsively: Ralph, give momma a kiss! *lick* Thank you! While we saw other cats, we were back the next day with no doubt.

When we adopted him, he was four or five, though as in all shelter adoptions it was possible he was older. We often ruminated on how *anyone* could give up Ralph. His only defect was a stunning capacity to live up to his name-- our carpets never recovered.

There was no sign or warning. Mom said he was being an absolute doll the night before, so happy you could feel it coming off him in waves, chasing the other cast around the house, reveling in the found energy that accompanied his recent successful weight loss. He was a lean-mean, fighting machine, back to all muscle, and streaking around the house constantly. When she came in the next morning, his food bowl was empty, so he ate with his usual gusto, I'm sure. He was laying in the hall, looking like he'd just taken a rest.

We think it was a heart defect. Larger cats often have them, and they tend to kill at about eight or nine years. He went quickly and with little pain-- mom said he was peaceful, and there was no foam in his mouth, or any signs of poison or sickness or struggle. His eyes were open, as if he disappeared before he knew to close them.

Grief is a new emotion to me. It is the heaviest thing I've ever carried, but clean, pure in a way other sadnesses are not. There isn't a point in telling it no, to go away, that it shouldn't be there. Maybe it's just that I have no hang ups about giving in to the grieving, but when it comes it is in swells that lift me up sure as the ocean and it seems so pointless to flail against it. Just ride it, and eventually it will deposit you on the beach of a foreign shore, one where someone so important to you as to seem indispensable will never set foot, and the land where they are stuck a dim shadow on the horizon, disappearing into the mists.