I Still Miss Someone

Today is the two year anniversary of the death of my best pet ever, Smokey. While I have other pets, now, and have had other pets in the past, he will always be the one--I'm sure you probably have a pet like that, too.

I was devastated when I had to take him to the vet that morning because I knew he wouldn't be coming home. I called my friend Megan, and all I said was "I need to go to the vet," and she was at my house within minutes. I was afraid to be alone as they shot him up with the pink juice, and so she stayed in the room with me. She left to make some phone calls, one to her husband, and one to Justin to bring cigarettes and beer to my house (it was early on a Sunday morning) to meet us after it was all over.

While Megan was out, they prepared Smokey with a little i.v., and when I was ready to let him go, I went looking for Megan so she would be in the room with me when I summoned the vet. I couldn't find her, so I waited. When she walked back in the room, I said, "I looked for you." And she looked at Smokey and started to tear up and say something about how she was sorry she missed it. "No. I said. He's not dead, yet. He just looks like it." And though it's macabre, I have always thought it was funny that she thought he was already dead--I think we laughed about it then, or maybe it was later.

The other funny part is that we looked like a lesbian couple. Megan was wearing short pants, flip flops, and a The Sword t-shirt. Her hair was disheveled as I had disturbed her from her sleep, and she didn't take the time to get dolled up (thank you, Megan). I was dressed in a blue v-neck shirt with jeans that were rolled up and flip-flops. My legs hadn't been shaved in days, my hair was a mess, but I had brushed my teeth and donned a bra (thank god). Megan was really quiet as I talked to the vet; yet, he kept looking in her direction, maybe for answers or because I was suffering from a reasoned hysteria and she seemed sane, almost pleading with Megan, "You can reason with her, right?" as I asked my millions of questions about death, and tumors, and morals. I think we joked that day about him assuming we were a couple, she the angry lesbian who didn't like animals, and me, the lesbian that she had met and fallen in love with who just happened to have a cat that was older than dirt, that just wouldn't fucking die already.

Nothing in this world can prepare anyone for death. You think you're prepared, and the moment comes, and you're not prepared. And though I was lucky enough to see it and be there, watching the life leave one of your best friend's eyes is indescribable, eerie and peaceful all at the same time--eerie because it's so quick and peaceful because you finally know they are at rest.

I have often thought of writing a cat version of Marley and Me. The only problem being, pet stories bother me, even as I am writing this one. The other problem being that there are cat people in this world and there are dog people (rarely do the two combine, but it happens), and I have this nagging assumption that people just think dogs are funnier.

I will share two of my most favorite Smokey moments (a disclaimer: Smokey was an indoor/outdoor cat. When I got him, we lived in a neighborhood that had a big field out back and not much traffic, and he was happy outdoors--he used to fish in the ditch behind our house and come home sopping wet from his swim with fish in his mouth which he would leave on the doorstep. However, I didn't know the perils of outdoor cat life--well I did, but he drove me crazy trying to get outside, so I gave in, but I know better now.) :

At the house I lived in previously to the one I live in now, I had a next-door neighbor, Janey. Janey was an older woman that lived in the basement of a huge two story house. Her mother (who had recently died) occupied the top floor with her brother Tom, a very large developmentally challenged man who used to sit on the porch in his whitey-tighties and smoke cigarettes in the middle of the night. Janey had a nasty gray cat, Peasley. One of my first encounters with Janey was at about 5:00am on a weekday. I was getting ready for work and opened the window in my bedroom because I heard someone outside. She was lifting the cat door on her apartment window, right across our adjoining yards, and had her face pressed up to, and partially out of the cat door, and was calling "Peasley! Peasley!" We were face-to-face, separated by only a few yards as we both lived in the basement. "Oh, hello!" she said. It was one of our only encounters until she knocked on my door one evening. I opened the door to see her standing there, carrying a yellow household broom, one hand bleeding, the blood dripping all the way down her arm. "Can you come get your cat?" she asked. "What happened?" "He came in the cat door, but he won't leave. I started smacking him with the broom to get out of my house, and when I bent over to pick him up, he attacked me!" I toed the line of being amused (what did she expect, she was smacking him with a fucking broom?) and worried that I would end up on Judge Judy. I arrived to find Smokey hiding under a chair, and when he saw me, he crawled out, and I picked him up. Janey said he snuck in through the cat door and was eating her cat's food (a problem that I had over the years with Smokey where he would sneak into different people's homes to eat--I once locked myself in the bathroom to eat a sandwich because he wouldn't leave me and the sandwich alone). I tried to explain to Janey that "it was just sort of his thing," but she was convinced that I didn't feed him, and she sent me home with an almost full bag of Science Diet food because "Peasley didn't like it."

When I moved into my current house from my old apartment next door to Janey, Smokey still had his collar reading the old residence's address. I was at home, and I may have slept late that day as I remember nursing a hangover and never getting ready, simply showering and putting my pajamas back on. Justin was at my house, and we were sitting out on the deck. I got a phone call. "Hello?" I said. "Yes. I am here with someone named Smokey. I was at the park and when I went to leave, he jumped in my car. So, I hope it's alright, but I took him home." Oh, shit. I thought to myself. His tag says the wrong address. "You took him to the address on the tag?" "Yes. That's his home, isn't it?" "No. I haven't gotten him a new tag, but it's okay." Justin and I drove the few blocks to my old house where the woman said she had left Smokey on the doorstep. He wasn't there. I called a few times, and he came running from the direction of one of the neighbor's houses. Crisis averted.


So today I celebrate my pet, my friend, my dearly missed companion, Smokey the cat who survived being run over by my step-father returning from his early morning paper route (Smokey had to relearn how to walk), Smokey the cat who survived raccoon attacks, Smokey the cat who got dive-bombed by a seagull once and was deathly afraid whenever he saw them coming. I miss you, friend.