Timm with Shep and a pet mouse, 1972 or so.As I begin this post (on Dec. 11, finished and uploaded on Dec. 16), Hugo is curled in my lap, no easy feat with this laptop also somehow balanced in it, at the far end, close to my knees. Hugo’s not a kitten anymore – well, at least he’s no longer a teacup’s measure of purr and fur – and if he is a Maine Coon like several have surmised, he’s going to get a LOT bigger along the way, up to 25 pounds of high maintenance, low-IQ cat.
Hugo and Belle.For all the mayhem of 3 indoor cats (and 2 outdoor ones we feed regularly), there is plenty of comic relief, a good thing to have during these days when so much seems to be falling apart. And with so many losses in the past year and half – Nicholas and then Timm, several friends with bad cancer, three of our cats dying – Belle and Hugo represent life in the equation, more life, more of something simple and good. They are quintessential lap kitties, something we’ve never had, the two of them always nearby, always wanting food, love, a good stroke in one’s lap. Such purity of devotion helps us to forgive life of all its hardness and errancy, all of the failing and falling and dying. A good thing, as Martha Stewart would have said … simple reminders that life can also be a source of joy …
Yet it is ever a fragile source of joy, for these furred bundles of unerring nature and peripheral and conditional devotion (for while dogs have owners, cats have staff), are fraught with their more limited mortality. In our Mount Dora household, we have lost more cats than we now tend, to accidents, disease and old age. Grief over losing a beloved pet goes deep for us; when a vitality and presence is snuffed out, the emptiness in the house is a hollow and palpable thing. Truly a piece of our hearts follow each one to the edge of the void, calling their name, hearing nothing back.
Yet how could we not fill those empty spaces again with a kitten (or two) to frolic and amuse and scold and worry over? We forgive the loss of these pets somehow in order that our hearts may be full again, to give love and receive it back (Belle has moved to the arm of this chair, resting a paw on my leg as I write).
Somehow, remembering the pets is a way of remembering Timm, filling life back into that cracked cup of a heart; and forgiveness of all those losses helps to forgive the great wound that Timm opened up when he left us, forgiveness of all the wrongs to beset him and more fully grieve the fullness of life Timm was able to muster.
Timm at age 13 or so with his dog Tippy, Molly with Monte and Mom. As far as I know, Tippy was Timm’s only dog, rescued from an alley in Chicago, moved to Orlando when the family broke up and cared for by Mom after Timm moved away until Tippy’s death. (He reportedly also got a rat -- what Mother called, defiantly, "an elephant mouse" -- for Christmas one year.)
In our suburban family, there have always been pets. Had we lived in the country, we probably would have had a cow, three pigs and a henhouse to boot. Here’s Timm with Ravel, Molly’s first dog, a poodle whose rambunctiousness got him run over at an early age while in my care (Molly was in Florida with Mom and Timm). Grief over losing Ravel got me introduced to alcohol, and its infernal lesson that you can always put a feel-good over a feel-bad, allaying for years the lessons of grief.
Here’s Timm in the boat with Will and Shep, our family dog for years, and Molly's dog Monte. Shep was a half-collie, half German Shepherd who was always attentive and ready for A Walk, Will pretty well absconded with Shep, taking him Out on his many forays past the borders of our home. Shep lived a good, long life, finally passing away when Will was living in Chicago alone. Will had him cremated and his ashes eventually ended up being buried in the Saint Oran Bell tower at Columcille, behind a stone that looks like a side portrait of an Irish Setter. (Thanks for Fred for that last piece of information.)
Last night I dreamed that Will died suddenly – not a heart attack but succumbing to something very quickly, like a fast-spreading cancer. A chill went through me, wondering if I would soon pass away too. Then, in the weird, time-compressed logic of the dream, we were planning a farewell picnic for Will, the whole family driving out in an old station wagon to some wilderness spot rarely visited by humans, with a knoll or clearing up on a height where we could throw Frisbees to Shep. And I was trying to get a picture taken of the three of us, the Cohea Boys, taken in the manner that Timm had once done ((not that any such picture exists in reality)). I stand alone on the knoll waiting for everyone to show up, trying to remember the characteristics of the photo which will be taken again, once more – raw format, .php suffix, a wide wide vista of Wilderness to frame, once more, one last time, the Three Sons –
The Cohea boys with Shep.With the exception of Tippy, Timm never had pet that I know of, except hamsters – those little fellas ran through all of our childhoods – but he did have a fondness for horses. Maybe it was their ability to carry him far that so appealed to him. Modes of transport and flight, the joy of riding the roads, hammering hooves through wilderness, into the raw, the rural real, the Next.
For the rest of us, we were far more domesticated with our pets. Will has had a number of dogs along the way – Bosco was followed by Shep, who was followed by Cormac and then Mama Mia. Here’s Will a year or so ago with Cormac, that big lug of a German Shepherd. Cormac passed away this year.
Unfortunately I’ve only scanned so much of the prints laying about. I wish I had a better one here of Mom and Ginger, her poodle who passed away last year. Ginger was a quintessential lap-doggie, watery-eyed, whining at your feet for access to her throne (your lap), glued to Mom like there was no tomorrow.
Here’s one photo I have on my laptop from a family Christmas three or four years ago, with Ginger in her usual spot on Mom’s lap as Mom talks with Beth. Some months after Ginger died (she was buried under a rose bush in Mom’s front yard), Joy came into Mom’s life, a white poodle rescued from a bad situation in South Florida.
Dad has had three border collies over the years, Lance and Duke and now Lochea. They were and are beautiful, rustic, intelligent dogs, ever attentive on Dad and Fred, perfect companions for walking the land.
Here’s Lance performing one of the tasks all three border collies were and are so adept at – climbing the standing stones of Columcille. Not all of them – Manannan stands some thirty feet high – but they all could sure scamper up a rock.
Here’s another shot, from Will’s wedding, with Duke and Will’s dog Bosco working the crowd. Sort of looks like one dog, doesn’t it? Bosco was a real mutt and loved to romp with Duke. Bosco lived to a ripe old age and then, suffering from a cancer, wandered off alone to die.
Lance and Duke each had their reign at Columcille for many years. The ashes of each are buried in special locations on the grounds.
Here’s a picture of Loch, the latest tuletary hound of Columcille. Some eyes, eh. They reportedly glow in the dark, like moons.
Molly has had many dogs over the years – Ravel the first poodle and then Monty. She now has three dogs, two Scotties and a Shih-Tzu named Pirate who actually belongs to Mary Beth. Many many dogs for Molly over the years, and the girls have had hamsters and birds too. Kathy’s bird Jack features prominently in many of the cartoons which Kathy has drawn.
For Beth and I, we began with Buster, a curmudgeonly Himalayan who lived to a very ripe age of 13. He was Beth’s companion for many of her single years and came to accept me quite begrudgingly (on our first date, he responded by leaving a pile of stools at the front door). But we got to be pals over the years; when I came down in the early morning for my reading and writing, Buster had a routine of getting in my lap for a while, getting his petums, then resting at my feet as I went about my day’s work. Buster was a frail cat, easily coming down with near-fatal urinary infections. He got diabetes and went blind and eventually was put down in April 2001, suffering from renal failure.
Putting down a beloved pet is a harrowing procedure; the pet is often ready to go far before the owner is willing to let him or her go. We’ve put down three pets over the years. This is how I recall that moment with Buster:
BUSTER
After we said farewell to Buster
at the vet, stroking his head
softly as the anaesthetic
slowly closed his eyes,
releasing the struggle
at last: After driving in to
work crying all the way,
both windows rolled down,
the warm wind no solace,
the light too bright: After
trudging through the duties
of work feeling numb and empty:
After coming home and
crying hard with my wife
remembering all the ways
Buster had been
such a prince in life, so
handsome and willful
and expressive: After
we both said how much
we loved and missed him
and couldn’t believe
he was gone:
After all that I sat out
on the upper deck to
take comfort in the
remains of the day,
a moist and fragrant
breeze sighing in
the camphor tree
by the garage, hurling
those wide green boughs
in spring’s fragile ache and joy.
I leaned back and closed
my eyes, weary from so
much sharp hurt, finding
for a moment the peace
that grief brings, as if great
losses make what remains
so tender and real: and exhaled
slowly into that loveliness.
And then the strangest
thing happened: With my
eyes closed I saw Buster
laying right at my feet,
the breeze ruffling his pale
white fur, his tail slowly
swishing to and fro,
his tiny nose sniffing the breeze,
his clear blue eyes lifting
back up at me, at you,
happy to be forever
right beside we who remain,
we who remember, we who
will always have a space for him
between memory and this living day.
On the eve of the July 4th weekend of 1997, Beth was leaving from her work at the Maitland Historical Society when she found three kittens, recently abandoned, mewling about her car. She scooped them up and brought them home and sequestered them in our guest bedroom, where many of our cats were introduced to our lives. We fell in love with the Siamese and kept her, naming her Violet. She’s been with us since.
In 2003 we woke one night to hear a cat yowling and hissing, obviously facing off with another animal. The next day, while going about our Sunday chores, I looked out the window that fateful guest bedroom and saw the noses of some kittens poking out of a crawl space under our neighbor Dan’s house. I called Beth to come check them out and she immediately ran outside with a plate of dry cat food. The mother was obviously starving (it was she who was shepherding her kittens across the street the night before, trying to find a place where she could tend them) and the four kittens looked like they might not make it. They ate ravenously that day and we ended up adopting them.
Theirs was a difficult history. We took them into the guest room to get them checked out – catching them was a feat, and one of the kittens, Blue, had a fractured leg. Three of the kittens tested positive for feline leukemia. One died a few days later, apparently from ingesting rat poison while wandering outside. We named the other kittens Blue and Red and Pink. We couldn’t keep all those cats as indoor pets and let them back out. They were quite happy in the half-wild of our back yard, often resorting back to the feral nature of their mother, eliminating the local squirrel and bird population.
Here’s Pink, the female. Pink died a couple years later of feline leukemia; Beth took her in to put her down.
Here’s Red, who was Beth’s favorite. He had rogue eyes except when in Beth’s lap, where he would melt into a cavalcade of purrs. Red owned his world, fully confident and poised and alert. We found him dead in the back yard a year ago last September, apparently having been hit by a car.
Blue was the skittish one, only coming so close to us though always showing up for food. One day he had a wound on his neck, pretty raw; a few days later he failed to show up for his meal and we never saw him again. There are coyotes about the fringes of our town and we wonder if he got killed by one (several other outdoor cats have disappeared).
Now there’s just Mamacita, the mother of the brood, who comes by the house morning and night to be fed. (She won’t stay here because of Myron, a scraggly grey male cat we also feed and who is lord of the yard, no matter what we say.) Our ritual has been a constant for years, me sitting with her as she eats, offering a sense of protection. She’s well fed and her fur is quite rich now, she seems healthy as a horse, but outdoor cats never live as long as indoor ones.
Mamacita (left) on the back porch (recently painted) as Beth gives Red some loveums.Not long before Red was killed, Beth and I were out walking one day when this starveling calico came up to us bawling for food. We noticed the cat a couple of days later and, concerned that it was starving, went back home and brought some food and water. The cat attacked the food with such fury that we were sure she was abandoned. We took her home with the thought of donating her to the Cat Protection Society, but within days we had fallen in love with her.
Calicos are feisty, attentive, smart cats; Zooey taught us that and Belle confirmed it. We thought Zooey was a kitten, or just out of kittenhood; but when we took her to the vet to be checked out we were shocked to discover she was around 14 years old. A thyroid condition made her suffer from endless appetite and little nutrition. We tended for Zooey for almost a year until she died of old age. For some reason we were profoundly affected by her death – she was such a fighter, so tenacious and fragile, so alert and attentive despite all her years, so sick so often, requiring constant care. Seems we have pined most for the cats who required the most care, as if those we poured our hearts fully into gave us the most back after they died.
This was my farewell poem to Zooey, who died on my 51st birthday last August 1:
ZOOEY
Today I came downstairs and
you weren’t here, crying
for food in that feline bawl
that sounded so much like
Ethel Merman at her worst,
dogging my steps so close
I had to step so carefully
lest I kick your frail old cat’s body.
You left us yesterday, or rather we
sent you away. You were down to
three pounds on the vet’s scale
and hadn’t an ounce of fight
or perturbation left -- just lay
there on the examining room
table, misty green eyes calm
in the peace of knowing
that you were looking on us
this last time, not far from home.
The vet agreed readily it was time
and the final procedure was
over in a few moments -- first the
sedative injection which closed
your eyes in sleep, then the shot
to still your heart. And that
was that, your 17 year-old-body
at one with God at last,
so tiny, so frail, so dear to us.
He lifted you up
and put you in the box
the tech taped shut and handed
over to us and we left, out
into the bright summer heat
of what goes on without you.
My wife held your box in
her lap as we drove home
and sat on the bench on
the back porch still holding
you there as I shoveled out
the hole out back between
the two bushes next to where we
buried Red last fall, that place
he so loved to nap
hot afternoons away.
The box she handed me
was lighter than air, lighter
than the smile that showed on
your face those times I lightly stroked
down your back when you’d lay
at my feet (always lifting your
tail up at the end of my stroke
to stroke back), lighter for sure than
that thing in me which let you go at last
when I set that box in the hole
of sand and shoveled sand back in,
tamping it down hard and then
setting a black flagstone on
the spot to keep the animals
of night from dragging you back up.
My wife and I -- your last but
hopefully only careful tenders
in your long life -- hugged
and said goodbye, certain it
was time, relieved your suffering
was over at last, glad
we’d had that long night last
where we took turns sitting up
with you as you cried and cried,
stroking your spirit free.
The house this morning is so so
empty -- or is it my heart? -
yet for some reason it’s
also so present with the richness
of your spirit, your memory,
that I wonder why the heart is
fullest in losing what it loves the most,
why our loved ones are so present
in the empty pew next to us,
our cats Buster and Pinkie, Blue
and Red there with you, my
brother Timm there too, singing
with one deep full voice how
much there is to love, to lose,
to miss on mornings like these
in rich satin velour of deep summer
with more rain on the way,
so much lonelier now without you
in this house which will never
again hear you cry.
God speed you happily and
fast to Paradise across the
great waters in your tiny soul boat.
I pray you’ll never be hungry again
and live forever in the gold pleasure
of having your chin lightly stroked
by all the angels of heaven.
Thanks for the life you
brought into this house
which earned you your final name.
The memorial in our back garden where Red and Zooey are buried.The emptiness in our house left by that old, abandoned cat Zooey had Beth and I going to the Cat Protection Society just a few weeks later. That was a noble, sad place, with 600 homeless cats being kept alive in conditions just a grade above squalor. We found Belle in the kitten room, not the prettiest kitty about but her silky attentiveness caught my eye, making me think of Zooey. Beth picked out Hugo in a cage of new arrivals, playing with a littermate in the litter box (prophetic, because Hugo came to us with a litterbox of illnesses); we not adopted him, four others working in the shelter had their eyes on him.
That brings me to the present of this overlong pet post. I don’t think Timm had pets as an adult, and, given his readily outpouring nature toward others, is surprising. Maybe because he moved around so much it was impossible to keep a pet. Maybe the inherent threat of loss was too risky for him. Whatever the case, where I find no pets in Timm’s adult history, I yet find all of ours tied to the memory of Timm; all the pets we’ve loved and lost are with Timm in the garden now in moonlight, faint and silvery, turned away yet near, phosphors of the love which fades somewhat but cannot die as long as we remember and smile.
Pink, drinking water. Over the years we've discovered that nourishment and love are identical qualities with our pets.
Duke (or is it Lance?) by the Burial Chamber at Columcille.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Leave a word for Timm here!