In Meowmorium

Those who know me well know that I am a SillysloppySyrupyShameless lover of cats, which I refer to as "mirs." I think there is some deep psychological thing about this passion; no doubt, it is something unhealthy, or at least neurotic.

All to say that one of our mirs died this week. Her real name was Sophie, but I am something of a poet, which means I tend to multiply names for anything I give a lot of attention to, especially if the attention is loving. Therefore, Sophie was also called - at various times - precious mir, this mir and prejudice mir.

This last label requires a bit of explanation. You see, our other mir, "Kiwi," is colored primarily black. Sometimes, she even gets called "negro mir" or "neegie mir." (Please! For crying out loud! Don't tie this to some kind of racial hobbyhorse! This fun with language is not a reflection of a hidden agenda. SHHEEEESH! Anyway...)

The two cats have never really gotten along that well, and most of their fights seem to have been started by Sophie; thus, "prejudice mir." One time, I even refered to her as KKKat, but that *did* seem a little over the line, so never again.

Sophie's limp soul-less body was lying out on the road. It had just happened, because she had not been run over again since the original confrontation with naked eternity.

Blake discovered her. I gave him the choice to either go get the body out of the road, or dig the hole to bury her. He chose the latter; I knew he would. This way, I got out of adding labor to sorrow. However, picking up the body was sadder than I thought it would be. The broken spinal column made for a pretty tragic heap to pick up.

After burial, we stood over her and said a few words.

It is a strange thing, the sudden unexpected death of a living being you have lived with for a long time. I'm not one of these whackos who loves animals *TOO* much in order to compensate for a resentment of humans, but I did enjoy Sophie a great deal. I can not imagine that feeling of loss being magnified exponentially by the death of a person I love. It is truly going to be horrible.

Makes you want to not love anybody... to avoid the pain.

Copyright © 2004 Donald L. McIntyre All Rights Reserved