Let me remember you.
There. From beginning to end. Gotcha.
Maisy is on my lap. She sulks when I work away from home.
Milo is here as well, eating food that he’s not supposed to. I should intervene, but I’m leaving him to it.
This is a very difficult time of year. I remember the good old days, which were challenging enough, but I had Thanksgiving to look forward to. The stress and the planning and the wanting of it. The belief in it. Three or four different events and arrangements competing for my attention. This year, we have nothing. We are not wanted, and I think we will spend the holiday alone. So I should decide to make a success of that but I’m tired of making new traditions, I’m bored with making the best of it. I tell people that we should follow the energy with friendships and family, and all of that energy is in the other country.
A lot happened this year. With kids, with everything. We almost got kids, and then we didn’t. Maybe in the next life they can tell me whether it was fear or good sense that changed the plan. Either way, my wife is grief-stricken and her entire family have nothing to offer except denial and ignorance. Maybe it helps for my in-laws to be so terrible, otherwise I would have to take all of the blame for myself. But no; I would prefer for them to show even the smallest of damns for her.
I got some joy from the time we spent with my sister, I got some love and energy. But coming back here, it’s even more obvious, we have less now. Less burden, less interruptions. Less love.
I was supposed to write this year. I wrote a poem that I’m proud of, but I don’t have people around me who write, I haven’t found my tribe.
Let me tell you about the cats.
Kitten was bitten in the neck by another cat, probably one of the family. Resulted in a horrific abscess. But she has recovered, and while she is still as skittish and well, crazy as ever, I think she is more confident around people. She likes to chase the squirrels, and she likes to play with Milo, even though he is no Sully. Kitten is profoundly traumatized by her life before us, and it seems that we cannot fix her, perhaps because we’re broken ourselves. But we love her.
Maisy is my cat. I love her, and she will be 11 soon. The age where it can all go badly for cats, you know how it is. Today she is still fast, she still cries at me and purrs as soon as I touch her. She caught three squirrels this year, and I don’t even know how she managed it. (Of course, I don’t want her to do such things – I cremated the squirrels, spread their ashes by the Sully tree.) I wonder if her dying will do me in. But I have been telling her something important, something I wish I had told you; she just has to be a cat. She doesn’t have to take on my sadness or anxiety. She can just be a cat and be in the moment, and all I ask, as I let her out without a harness, is that she come home. That’s the only thing. Come home.
Daisy is beautiful and smart and her whiskers vibrate magnificently when she purrs. Still, she is too big, and I know she isn’t always content. She could do without Milo, but she spends late afternoons on the deck furniture, lounging in the sunshine. She doesn’t leave the yard and she keeps me company when I work on the firewood. And she is our very best alarm clock.
Milo is strong and fast, he is playful and affectionate. He would spend most of the day on Rebecca’s lap if she let him. He goes on long patrols around the neighbourhood and gets into trouble the way boy cats do. But he has overgroomed his front legs in a bad way, because of…we don’t know why. We are trying blood tests and special food and all the things. The dynamic between him and Daisy means we have two cats who spray in the house, but we like having a boy, we’ve always had a boy, right?
And I say good night to you, every night. Which makes me a bit fucking crazy. But I can’t stop that. I won’t stop that. It’s this time of year when I look forward to the walk, down by the train tracks, where I can say the things out loud, and I can tell you how sorry I am for letting you down. And I can say thank you. I can tell you the story of you and us. It’s a good story.
I cried about these things, the bad things, last night, tears down my face, and it feels crass to hold the weight of cats and grief when there is so much I could be feeling. But we know, don’t me, that it might not be so much about cats. I’m putting my darkest side into grief for you.
And since we’re being honest, my grief for Sully feels harder these days. I think because he lived here in this house. Because his last week was spent in our walk-in closet, dying so obviously that the other cats wouldn’t go near him. But I love you both, I cry for you both. And I do my best to smile as well. Every night I seek to hold you in my thoughts, Murphy, Sully, and Pussy Galore, and there are times where I will ask you to look out for the cats alive in this house, and I suppose I’m asking the universe or God. But it’s nice to put a furry face on the ask.
Maisy continues to purr, make her sulky miaows on my lap. Milo wanders around, looking for me to drop some food. So I must be thankful, grateful that at least I have cats. I am 50 years old, and so much of this has been a colossal waste of time and energy, but I’m grateful for cats.
Murphy, I see cats that look like you online. When I see one at the adoption places, I want to grab it. But there’s nothing I can recreate. There won’t be a cat who’s as clever, as fierce.
I’ll make my promise, the same one I’ll make on the train tracks. To be good for the cats, to give them a good home, to pay attention, to read the signals.
I remember you, from the first time I heard you purr to the last. And as my life goes on, into over-time, I have to accept that I don’t connect with people, even though that makes my heart ache. So I will be good with cats, I will be better. And I’ll tell you how much I love you at the train tracks, and there will be the best of energies.
Best of cats. Best hunter, best sleeper. I love you and I miss you.
Difficult Second Novel 