Some sadness, folks.
I lost a difficult friend today. For those of you who listen to the opening of the show, you know I had a mystery blood issue on my front porch. I assumed it was one of the feral cats I feed. I was hoping it wasn’t the one I knew the best, a guy I call Scaredy Cat. He was AWOL for a day but he eventually showed up seemingly fine. I still don’t know where all that blood came from. When you feed ferals you have to be prepared to deal with death and injury. Sometimes you can't help them at all. Sometimes they disappear for months and come back. Point being, I’ve grieved for a lot of cats that have come back, some from the dead I thought.
I got a message from my neighbor across the street on Friday morning that the cat I had been feeding was hit by a car and she had moved the body onto the ledge of my next door neighbor's house. She was sad. I had just gotten up. I had no idea which cat it would be but I was hoping it wasn’t Scaredy. He’d been around a long time. I always found relief and strength and hope when I saw that guy. I went to look and there was no cat there. I called her. She described the cat. It sounded like Scaredy but there was another little cat that looked like Scaredy that had started coming around. I called him Scaredy 2. When I went back out to do some detective work I saw Scaredy 2 walking down the sidewalk. The one who died was the old warrior, Scaredy.
I asked my neighbor Dennis if he had seen the dead cat and he said he had when he pulled out at 5:30 in the morning. I guess another animal came and took the dead guy and he is going to re-enter the ecosystem that way, the wild way. I really don’t know how he could’ve gotten hit. He’s been out there for about a decade with coyotes and cars. I think maybe he was sick. Maybe that was his blood. Maybe he was bleeding internally. The neighbor said he was intact, not smashed or smushed, just lying there. I’d like to think that he dropped dead of natural causes.
It's strange. Boomer disappeared and I never really got closure on what happened to him. Scaredy, though I know it was him and he is dead, I didn’t see his body either. He will enter the mythic in my life mythology now. I only know him alive. I feel the absence. Some life that was there in my life is not anymore. We collect absences. They become a sad place, a room in our heart, that we can visit when we can handle it. This absence is very present now. I’m living in it. I’m sad. I brought his water dish and food dish in last night and this morning Scaredy 2, who is only an occasional visitor, showed up on the porch. So, I filled the bowls and put them out for him. And the cycle of life continues.
RIP Scaredy.
Today I talk to the lovely and funny Natasha Leggero. It gets good and weird. On Thursday I talk to rock veteran Terry Reid about it all. Literally all of it, rock.
Enjoy!
Boomer lives!
Love,
Maron