![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
That cat and I understood each other. No past cats of mine, with the exception of Purrly, who was my feline mother in several ways, have been so interested in simply hanging out with me, no obligations. Shadow and I would spend entire afternoons, nay, whole days, lying on the front lawn and reading. He could have been on the driveway, where the concrete is warmer, or under the car in the shade, or even inside, but if I took a blanket out and set up with a drink and a snack and a book, he'd wander nonchalantly out the front door after an innocuous amount of time, as though he'd been planning to go anyway, and lie in progressively closer sprawls and spheres to me, till often he was back up against my shoulder blades or in the hollow of my knees or behind my elbow. His eyes were the exact same color as the grass, and when he took the initiative and strode purposefully towards me with his head up, it looked like you could see right through his head to the lawn behind him.
He wasn't pushy or extra self-centered; when he insisted he wanted to sit in my lap, it wasn't necessarily so I would scratch his ears. Even with my laptop in my lap, sometimes he just wanted to rest his chin on my hand. It must have been fairly uncomfortable while I was typing and using the trackpad, but apparently that connection was enough to justify it.
He had his own nap schedule, like any cat, and it wasn't unknown for him to wake me up in the wee hours playing with the window blinds if he was bored and wanted out of my room. But he sure did want to be in there when I went up to go to sleep. And he would put up with all kinds of tossing and turning and settling as I drifted.
I barely even remember him as he was when we got him, a shivery half-feral half-pint with a penchant for sitting on shoulders once he socialized. He turned into the most easygoing, down-to-earth, spherical provider of unassuming company. Mrs. Debakey probably kidnapped his sister, but maybe she's happy under the supervision of a crazy rich lady with nothing to do but steal other people's animals. I hope Umbra didn't get sudden renal failure.
This loitering cough and the aggressive cramps that attacked in the middle of Sunday night are exacerbating my grief, but I really do miss Shadow. And he's one of the few cats I've known who has definitively died, rather than disappearing gradually. Mama said he was miserable, on the day he died; he'd been sluggish the couple days before. I hope he wasn't too miserable then. I wish I had been there.
Everybody's been very sympathetic, though no one's very close, and there's really nothing to say when somebody's pet dies, except that you're sorry. Knowing that people relate to pets differently, it's hard to gauge how close a person might have been to an animal, and you don't want to say the wrong thing. He was really my friend. And then there are all the irrelevant and fruitless considerations of responsibility; he was MY cat, so what did I do wrong, and how could I have helped him more? And there is the reminder of the ephemeral quality of, not just life, but everything. The beauty of grass-green eyes is fleeting. Everyone's dying, even now. Someone who liked to rest his chin on your hand will probably die before you, again. And when you're dead, everything will keep dying. When there's no one left to record it, the heat death of the universe will ensure no one ever arises again. Any perspective is gone.
But meanwhile, there was Shadow, and he was beautiful, and there still is beauty. Simon walked into the room for Queen rehearsal and put down his bass. Without a word (because there are none), he offered me his hand, pulled me up, and drew me into a hug. The rest of tonight's rehearsals (and it was Tuesday, and there were many) were a little easier.
He wasn't pushy or extra self-centered; when he insisted he wanted to sit in my lap, it wasn't necessarily so I would scratch his ears. Even with my laptop in my lap, sometimes he just wanted to rest his chin on my hand. It must have been fairly uncomfortable while I was typing and using the trackpad, but apparently that connection was enough to justify it.
He had his own nap schedule, like any cat, and it wasn't unknown for him to wake me up in the wee hours playing with the window blinds if he was bored and wanted out of my room. But he sure did want to be in there when I went up to go to sleep. And he would put up with all kinds of tossing and turning and settling as I drifted.
I barely even remember him as he was when we got him, a shivery half-feral half-pint with a penchant for sitting on shoulders once he socialized. He turned into the most easygoing, down-to-earth, spherical provider of unassuming company. Mrs. Debakey probably kidnapped his sister, but maybe she's happy under the supervision of a crazy rich lady with nothing to do but steal other people's animals. I hope Umbra didn't get sudden renal failure.
This loitering cough and the aggressive cramps that attacked in the middle of Sunday night are exacerbating my grief, but I really do miss Shadow. And he's one of the few cats I've known who has definitively died, rather than disappearing gradually. Mama said he was miserable, on the day he died; he'd been sluggish the couple days before. I hope he wasn't too miserable then. I wish I had been there.
Everybody's been very sympathetic, though no one's very close, and there's really nothing to say when somebody's pet dies, except that you're sorry. Knowing that people relate to pets differently, it's hard to gauge how close a person might have been to an animal, and you don't want to say the wrong thing. He was really my friend. And then there are all the irrelevant and fruitless considerations of responsibility; he was MY cat, so what did I do wrong, and how could I have helped him more? And there is the reminder of the ephemeral quality of, not just life, but everything. The beauty of grass-green eyes is fleeting. Everyone's dying, even now. Someone who liked to rest his chin on your hand will probably die before you, again. And when you're dead, everything will keep dying. When there's no one left to record it, the heat death of the universe will ensure no one ever arises again. Any perspective is gone.
But meanwhile, there was Shadow, and he was beautiful, and there still is beauty. Simon walked into the room for Queen rehearsal and put down his bass. Without a word (because there are none), he offered me his hand, pulled me up, and drew me into a hug. The rest of tonight's rehearsals (and it was Tuesday, and there were many) were a little easier.
Tags: