“Struggling to make peace with the irreparable…”
I read this line somewhere after the kind of week that will turn you into a zombie — literally. The sort of week when you wish you could turn back time for a do-over. Then I re-read the line in my quest to address the intensity of my grief and crawl out of the dark tunnel from which I felt I couldn’t escape. I had been so incapacitated and destroyed from within that I could barely speak. All I wanted to do, since I couldn’t turn back the clock, was to zone out and let the time pass, as she inevitably does, until I could forgive myself and stop crying.
He came to us the way of most of our critters, I believe, by just showing up, though it could be that we rescued him and another, as super-babies, about 25 years ago. A very long time in the past. He was always a very solid character, well-paced, and he adored me. He was a country creature and never ventured too far from the ranch, somehow knowing intrinsically that home was his safe harbor. He never seemed to have the quest for adventure or hunting for excitement on the other side of the fence like others of his ilk, who vanished to never be seen again.
Over time, he escaped death several times. He was most certainly bitten in the face by a rattlesnake twice, to my certain knowledge. Regardless of any bumps and bruises, he was always here in the front yard — a mainstay to the inevitable changes in life. Comings and goings, grandkids, grown kids and their changing partners, you know. Like an institution, he was always there. If I couldn’t see him, I would call for him and there he would be. A nice, predictable chap with the manners of a champ.
As he aged, it was very important to him that he have more wet food than dry and be regularly spoiled with milk, rice and cheese, a little turkey, chicken or ham also acceptable — not to mention a nice cluster of treats twice a day. I could not believe the appetite on this old booger and the others of his kind parted the way for him. He had lived so long he’d gained their respect; I liked that. Survival of the fittest was not a mantra in my front yard. Every now and then he would appear super scrawny or skinny and I’d think … oh dear, here we go. People would ask me about his age, and I would say, believe it or not, he came to us the first year we were here, which is 26 years ago, so that has to make him about 25. I’m not sure what the record is, but I think he was going for gold, top of his class, all-over champion. Guinness Book Record Holder.
He had taken to lying in the full-winter sun on the driveway. I was not a fan of this and would park, then pick him up and move him away. We have deliveries, we have drop-byes, people have told me how they nearly hit him, just lying there on his driveway, as he saw it, but there was no persuading him that this was a bad idea. He was an old man, he was entitled and he was going to do whatever he damn well wanted. That was a part of his personality that I just loved. But not in this case.
I returned from Europe and didn’t give the driveway thing a second thought. I had been gone for two weeks, and I was trying to get back into the time zone, settle myself in on the planet of being here, not there. I had gone to lunch with a friend and drove back home thinking of all the stuff I needed to accomplish. I saw husband sitting at the end of the driveway and, dammit, I didn’t look down.
My old black cat had been lying in the driveway. I felt the bump and saw my husband stand in reactive shock. Oh no, oh no, oh no. I saw my old Bone limp away into the lavender and I knew. I had just run over my own, beloved cat. My sleek, lovely, lemon-eyed black cat had just gone under my tires. Never mind he was really old and should have died years ago, I had just killed my cat.
He remained alive for a very short while by the lavender bush and I loved on him and told him how sorry I was and how much I loved him. I covered him with my deluge of salty tears and then he was gone — 25 years of loving that opiniated character and I had killed him myself. In all my years of adoring and rescuing animals, this had never happened. Heart break does not even begin to describe it. I howled at the husband for just sitting there and not stopping me, I raged against the universe that would allow such an awful thing to happen at all, I raged more at myself for not being cautious and checking on the driveway ahead and averting this horrible tragedy.
“It was an accident,” friends tried to console me. “It was bound to happen,” said husband, helpfully (he’s still alive, barely). I was inconsolable. I told a friend that I hoped his enormous, sweet spirit would forgive me and she assured me that it would. It already had. He knew I always had his best interests at heart, the sane part of me knows that at least.
We buried him in the front yard under an angel by the rose bushes, where he loved to reign proud over the other, younger whippersnappers. I talk to him every time I go by his grave and tell him how sorry I am and how I wished things were otherwise. I carry this grief like a heavy sack of burden on my diminished self. I cannot unsee the awfulness and it will take me a long time to find me again in this dark, gloomy mess of tragedy. One day I will rescue an old black cat again and I will make sure he is just as spoiled, in the memory of my darling Bone.
I’m struggling to make peace with the irreparable this week and I am not winning, just barely hanging on. If you see me and I can barely say hello, then that is why. My grief is deep.
Gus “Bone Boy” Jensen came to Solace as a kitten and died a very old man, regardless of the circumstances. If I find myself still tripping over something in my garage, I’ll know for sure it’s his large spirit, still pushing me around.
