Sometimes something happens that you know is going to happen, someday perhaps soon, and then when it happened, it’s like, that’s not how I envisioned it. We get use to so many things around us; day after day there they are. Then one day . . .

Ashes came into our home as a little ball of kitten fur almost 15 years ago. Picked by our youngest out of a box full of little balls of kitten fur as a gift from a coworker Ashes was even then of particularly cute stock. She grew to be one of the most gorgeous animals I have ever seen with personality to match. She was so different in so many ways that I am not even sure she really was a cat.

Now I should add here that I am not a ‘pet guy’. I grew up with some dog around most of my life and I remember petting each from time to time but I am pretty sure I didn’t care all that much. My dad was a dog guy and I have some brothers and a sister who are as well. I just never was. Never had a cat and the guinea pig that occupied my brothers’ room and mine was nearly put to death by one of my brothers in a well intended bathing episode one night when the sitter wasn’t looking. My dad, the dog guy, sat up all night with the shivering rodent wrapped in a blanket warming it back from the brink. I went to bed.

The animal lover (and of all things living) in our home is Toni. SHE is a dog person and a cat person and most recently a duck and goose and gila person. In conversation with her many years ago while talking about pets I offered the opinion that people who sleep, or eat or go to the movies with their dogs or cats or fish have ‘issues’; maybe not serial but there seems to be something there that needs to be worked out.

Toni suggested (among a slew of other things) that I was missing the point. The point she said, is simply that it is another heartbeat in the house. Wow. It was for me the proverbial a brick in the head; a game changing reason for their presence. Now that heartbeat is gone.

For fifteen years Ashes played and slept at her own convenience. She slept on the boys’ bed or beneath at her discretion. She was underfoot or on the desk regardless of Toni’s activities again at her choosing. She would engage the other cat (don’t even get me started) when she felt the need and would totally rebuff the advance from the other when she did not. If my friends were to do this they wouldn’t be my friends but with Ashes it seemed somewhat regal.

Of course she was loved by the boys and spent years under the scrunching hand of the youngest. She was, however, the constant sidekick for Toni and hours would pass while on conference calls and such where Ashes was the lap appendage; sweet quiet content. When we realized she was really gone Toni’s choked gasp was, “I didn’t get to say goodbye”. That cut me deeply. And then the frantic search of the house inside and out; the neighbor’s bushes followed by a ring of the bell. Everyone was kind.

Online the word went out and friends and family offered their concern and assured her that this is what cats do when they go to die. (I am now very grateful that FaceBook was not around in the year my father passed). But knowing seeped in and increasingly throughout the day we came to accept. Tears were shed all throughout but at the end, while the sadness weighed heavy there was a certain respect and with it peace for the inner voice that spoke of death and sent the heartbeat to a quiet place to return its soul. This is what I want to do.

Now here is the rub. Between the times that I first placed my feelings here, and now, Ashes has returned. That’s right she’s here; puked and gone two days in atypical fashion to die in peace then a late night dramatic entrance. It should not have surprised me. Today she has been ‘normal‘ all day. Perhaps rehearsal for the real show but . . .

I am told that my dad dies. I cry. He does not come back. I am told that my cat dies. I cry. She comes back. I am a dad guy not a pet guy so how does THAT happen?

In reflection it seems to happen as a reminder of the value of the heartbeat, regardless, and the fleeting nature of our presence. It is really very simple. For all our perceived power we don’t get to decide. Sometimes, in life at work in love, we get a second chance and sometimes we don’t. This time I did. We all did.

Think I’ll go curl up on the couch; if she’ll have me . . .

Jim

jim@thepeopleacademyinc.com
www.thepeopleacademyinc.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/jimreece