The Post-Josquin World

Ugh, I'm just a mess. Taking Josquin's body to the Vet to have him cremated was like an out of body experience. There were other people waiting there in the office when I arrived. The clerk asked "Can I help you?" I answered yes, and that I 'had a body for them' because I couldn't manage to get the words "Yes, I have my dead cat in a box here wrapped in a towel. I just watched him die not even an hour ago now I have to say goodbye forever" out of my mouth.

You could have heard a pin drop. Everybody knew-and once I confirmed that "its Josquin" people realized it was not some roadkill but my beloved pet-it stayed that way. Luckily he took the box away quickly-and I didn't have to linger on thoughts about holding his dead body. It was just a shell a that point, albeit a furry one! I managed to keep it together long enough to mumble something about a credit card number(thank you honey) and where they could reach me. "He said "Sorry about your kitty" and said thanks, grabbed the receipt and walked out the door. 15 feet later my face was drenched. I felt this huuuuge empty space open up in my life. Josquin had always been my cat-I picked him out myself-and having spent so much time and energy and emotions in the process of caring for him this last year-I felt like a ship cut loose from its moorings. I decided to walk the 2 miles home through the city shrouded in fog, through golden gate park and the beautiful pan handle full of trees and flowers. I took pictures and thought about places where a small token portion of his ashes will be spread. The rest will stay with me, but I don't know where I can keep them. I can barely look at pictures of Josquin right now without bursting into tears. I hope I am able to pull it together to make a small pictorial memorial of him....and let me tell you this cat was a serious ham...and very pretty to boot. There are a LOT of pictures...so it will be both funny and sad, poignant and beautiful.

Tweed has spent a good portion of the day looking around the house, as well as last night. I think it is starting to dawn on him that Josquin is "not here" anywhere. Having grown up together their lives were, for better or worse, fairly intertwined. He has to be feeling the vacuum like I am. Several times now I have seen him standing in the hall pointed toward the door. His bed sits empty near the patio door and no one comes to clean the top of his head while he is napping. Life will be different now-for both of us. I just have to give him enough love for two right now. Hold steady kitty...hold tight.

the best way to mend a broken heart is to fall in love again-I will have two cats again-but a new friend for me and Tweed. I'll admit I already went to the SPCA's cat page and looked over older cats. When I looked at Tweed and Josquin's adoption papers after Josquin passed, I realized they had been adopted in October-which isn't that far away but not tomorrow. Maybe Josquin was just being timely, making way for some other cat to be a part of my life, not unlike Bruce, Bob and I. There are forces at work that cannot be explained. The way the universe folds on itself is not privy to me-but I'll keep at it. As long as I can have cats. :)