If I can manage to do so without turning into a total loser, I wanted to say just a couple more things about my cats, and then I promise we’ll move on. Back to usual business next week.
When I realized that Harry was gone forever and not just MIA, it wasn’t hard to start thinking about him in the past tense, and it wasn’t hard to frame our relationship in that mix of golden hazy memory and crystal-clear anecdotes. The subject had not been too far from my mind ever since Maynard died last year. The two of them were close enough in age that Maynard’s loss meant Harry’s would come sooner than later. Not that I was waiting for Harry to die, but there was a readily-transferrable set of feelings and thoughts. Indeed, I sort of had this sense of Harry’s invincibility, and as last week dragged on I was still not convinced that he wasn’t going to show up at the door, tired and hungry. On Friday, though, when I got out of the car and Murray wasn’t waiting at the door, the whole bottom dropped out of everything. It was the proof of one unthinkable scenario and the sudden shocking appearance of another. Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It is much, much harder to find the right context for Murray. He brought me so much happiness in this past year, which was otherwise so mindbogglingly unhappy, but that time is the blink of an eye to me. I can remember how sure I was when Maynard came to live with us that this tiny kitten would not survive, and Harry’s beginnings were equally uncertain, but I never gave so much as a fleeting thought that Murray would be anything other than forever. And now, instead of collecting years of memories of him, he is consigned to be nothing but a footnote: “Remember that kitten we had that got eaten by the coyote years ago, what was his name?” We are all forgotten eventually, of course, but the transition is especially abrupt this time, and so undeserved.
I have shared my life with over a dozen different cats, and I’ve realized that the one I had the most in common with was Lola. Lola was a tough room. She didn’t like many people, she didn’t like the other cats foisted upon her by us, and she was generally unhappy about her situation most of the time. She lived in the shadow of her sister Esme, and then Maynard, and finally Harry, all of whom were better loved and more interesting cats. Life was thrust upon her without much consideration for her own desires, and she was usually asked to put up with something inconvenient or uncomfortable for someone else’s benefit. As she grew older, her resilience for these things grew thin, and she spent most of her last months avoiding the world. Finally, she simply opted to get sick and die, but even then it did not go smoothly. Just like Murray, she deserved more than she got, especially from me.
My own broken heart won’t mend much more, but I know that nothing ends here except the time of Harry and Murray. That other cats will arrive and find cherished places in our personal history. That even though Murray will never have much of a story of his own, he basks in Harry’s reflected glory. And my Harry, my big orange galoot, will abide with me until all of us are long, long forgotten.
