As I write this, I am taking a break. There is only so much search-and-rescue one can do without taking a break when one possesses joints the size of baseballs.
I’m grieving, and I haven’t even seen her yet. She’s there, somewhere in the house, her silence so very loud in my head. She was a mouthy one, that one, especially as the dementia crept over her, draping her in continual confusion, a fact she quite often vocally advertised.
The silence is so very, very loud.
She’s missed three meals; she’s never been a girl who would miss a meal. Despite the fogginess that surrounded her, she could never ignore the sound of a cat food can cracking open, its aluminum rim squeaking as the tab freed that nasty meat-like product.
When I called her, she’d holla back in her best Edith-Bunker voice, telling me she was pissed and that I needed to come. Come now. Bring your hair. I need to drool. Now. Bring the food. Now. I need to eat. Now. Leave the dog. Dumbass. Now.
May would have been 17 years with her; over one-third of my life. Forty-point 46341463414634 per cent of my life.
Is that an irrational number? Hell, I don’t even know, but it would be fitting. She never was that rational.
She wasn’t particularly beloved; I joked that the only reason I kept her around was because she had tenure. I know a lot of people don’t get cats. I am not sure that I particularly get cats. But I did get her.
Lyrical Fool 