RIP Emcee

At the risk of giving away my age to the math competent, I just now calculated that I spent approximately 34% of my life with my cat Emcee a part of it. Now she is gone, “put to sleep” at age 16. It is difficult for one who has not experienced something similar to comprehend the magnitude of the loss that represents, the hole that it leaves behind in it’s wake. Rarely did I consider what it would be like without her, what life would be like. That I would miss her when I wake up, as I get dressed, when I walk around and go to the bathroom, when I do laundry, when I leave for a trip and when I return, when I cook and write and every other mundane and less mundane thing I did and do each day of my life.

“She was just a cat” I have heard more times then I can count, and I have said those very same words over and over, repeating them like a mantra, hoping that somehow if I say them enough it will make it hurt less. Suffice to say it has not, and to those who think such words bring any measure of comfort I can tell you unequivocally they do not. “Just a cat” was in my life, touched it in so many ways. She was always there, always loving me in her cat way, never judging, never angry, never sad, at least not in the way humans are those things. She was always just present, my beautiful Emcee. Dead at age 16. Say hello to Vickie for me. Someday I will see you both again.

D