If I hadn't been crying, I would have yelled at him: "Just do
it! Hurry up before I grab this little guy, my companion, and run out
of here."
The assistant comes in and gently takes Cloudy out of his box and puts
him on his side on a towel. I insist on holding his head. I insist that
I will be the last one he sees.
The vet shaves a little patch off his hind leg and takes the needle.
I watch Cloudy's eyes, not the needle. I talk to him. I tell him, "There,
there my boy," not knowing what else to say, but somehow believing
the sound of my voice will comfort him.
Just before he dies, before the very last second, he stretches out
his front paw. In cat language he is saying, "Ah, this is good."
He is out of pain.
I am so distraught that they don't bill me until later. The vet wraps
Cloudy in the towel and puts him back in the cat travel case so that
I can take him home and bury him in the garden. And everyday, before
I go to work, I go to his grave in the back yard and put a flower on
it. Sometimes a rose, other times a hydrangea or snap dragon.
Cheryl hands me my receipt. I don't check it. To hell with oven stuffer
roasters and all the other bargains.
"Well," she says, as happy to ignore the next customer as
I am, "after my cat came back, she was just as mean as she always
was, and I wasn't home, but my neighbor, the one with the dog, saw my
cat in his dog's mouth and the dog's head going like crazy back and
forth."
"He killed her," I said, showing that I understand these things.
"Yup. Dead as can be. So when I get home from work, from here,
this neighbor is practically in tears. He's so upset and keeps saying
over and over how sorry he is. I tell him, 'Look, my cat was mean to
your dog. She was 21 years old. Don't worry about it.'"
I nod, knowing I would not have been half as tolerant and that I probably
would have found some creative ways to make this neighbor feel pretty
guilty.
"Before I can turn around, this guy has run home, built a little
coffin out of pine, put the cat in it and dug a deep hole in my yard
for the grave. After all the dirt's packed back in, I thank him, but
he runs off again and a half hour later is at my door asking me to please
come outside."
"I'm trying to cook dinner, my daughter has soccer practice, but
I figure I'd better do it. He leads me to the spot, still going on and
on about how bad he feels. There on the grave is a simple wooden cross
with my cat's name painted on it. I tell the guy that he really didn't
have to do it. That it's okay."
"His face is bright red, and he looks as if he might cry. He says
that he hopes I like the cross. I tell him it's fine, just fine, and
figure I'd better not mention that I'm Jewish. It might just do him
in."
I stare at her in amazement. She didn't blame this guy for her cat's
death, and then didn't care that he assumed she was a Christian. If
I could reach her, if I could get my arms across the conveyer belt,
I'd hug this woman just to touch that kind of goodness.
"But," I say, now totally into her story, "you don't
mind your cat having a cross on her grave?"
"Oh, God no! She was a devil. A pure she-devil. And here she had
a proper Christian burial."
Cheryl grins at me, radiating pleasure.
The woman behind me is not into our conversation.. She wants to get
her frozen dinners paid for and get the hell out of here. I thank Cheryl,
tell her I'll see her soon, and still dazed by her story, push my cart
out of the store, across the parking lot to my car.
As I put the stuffer roasters and get all the bags packed carefully
into my trunk, I hear Cheryl's happy voice, her glee as she told me
that she was Jewish and that her cat rests in peace under a simple wooden
cross. More than the sympathy of friends or the passage of time, her
sadistic cat's surprising end lifts the weight of grief off my shoulders,
introducing me to the wonder of a nondenominational grace at work in
the world.
