For my dragon, with love (6/1/99 - 7/5/07)
Dear Tiamet -
You died the other day. You were eight years old, in people terms. I think you had a seizure or a stroke, and you passed quietly as I held you in my arms, scrambling for my shoes and keys in an attempt to get you to the vet. If you were sick before it happened, you didn't show it.
For a little while after you were gone, I held you and thought I might ask the cat doctor to find out what had made you die, but then I decided against it, because it wouldn't bring you back to me.
i was going to write this letter and recount all the best moments I had with you these past years, like the time you belly-flopped into Melinda's fern or the day you were born on a porch in Akron, Ohio, on Zack's chest, because your mom, Azrael, was too scared to give birth in the box we'd made for her. Or the day in the apartment, after we moved out of the house with seven other people, when it was just you and me and Azrael and Lazarus living in a tiny converted attic, when I tripped and fell and started to cry because I hurt my leg, when you came over and lay next to me on the floor, nuzzling my cheek and purring, and I realized that you just might care about me after all.
I could tell a hundred stories like these that would exemplify all that you were: gorgeous, smart, cunning, loving, and a little evil, but I'm having trouble right now putting that all into words without crying too much. Some people probably think it's silly to get all upset like this over a cat, but you were my friend. More than that, you weren't just my cat. For the two years we lived with my friends, when there were eight of us in one house trying to figure out how to live lives in our early twenties together, you were there, and you were everyone's cat. You were there before Nat and Amanda were married and before Amanda was pregnant (she's due in just about a month, by the way); you were there before Aamir and Holly moved to California; you were there before Jen went to Oregon; you were there before I met Marc and got married and we started complicating your life by moving you around and adopting dogs who liked to chase you. When you were born, I was a kid just out of college. When you died, I was an adult with responsibilities and a mortgage payment and a husband and a million experiences behind me, all of which made me older and more cautious and a little slower and possibly a bit wiser, too. Thank you for being there with me for all of it.
Marc buried you in our back yard under the pine tree. I thought you'd like it there because you always wanted to play with the Christmas ornaments on our tree every year. We put you in a box with a bottle cap, your favorite toy, and I want you to know that the day we found out that you liked to chase and fetch bottle caps was one of my favorite days and one of my fondest memories.
My Tia, my chaos dragon, my little tuxedo cat. I hope that if there's such thing as an afterlife that it is filled with bottle caps and empty cardboard boxes and rivers that run with Friskies. If some part of you is still out there somewhere, please keep an eye on Marc and me and Lazarus and Azrael and and the other critters, and in return, we will never, ever forget you. If we are lucky enough to have life after this life is done, I want nothing more than to see you waiting for me when I get there some day.
I miss you like hell, kitten, and I love you.
With all my heart,
Kate
posted by Kate at 1:19 AM link/comments
