Sugar Substitute

Several years ago, my daughter, Molly, and I lost our beloved dog, Sugar, to a wild dash from the side door that lead to a hit-and-run death.  In trying to get over the loss of Sugar, Molly adopted a very nice cat she named Brody, the name an homage to the actor Adrien Brody because of the cat’s rather long nose.  At some point, we cutely called Brody our Sugar substitute.

Fast forward to now.  Somehow, I woke up last Saturday morning with a brand new cat, whom I finally named Roxie because of, well I don’t really know why other than she likes to play cat hockey with errant rocks she finds on my window sill in the middle of the night.

My life was really simple.  Living alone, things stayed where I put them even if I couldn’t remember where that was.  I had the freedom, if not the money, to travel and stay a while.  Vacuuming could wait another six months or so.

And it wasn't that I was lonely.  I have children and grandchildren who love me and even like me most of the time, and friends who put up with me, and interests and pursuits and favorite TV shows.  All the things that make life worth living.

So why a new cat now?  Why the cost and the aggravation and the responsibility, not to mention cat hair everywhere and that catbox smell?  The only reason I can think of is that I’d recently lost my brother, Sandy, not to a quick death under the tires of a Toyota but to a long battle with cancer, a war the cancer won.

So, was it possible that Roxie could become a Sandy substitute?  At first glance, it was iffy.

Whereas Sandy was trim and well groomed, Roxie is fluffy and a bit disheveled. 

Sandy never ever walked over my computer keys while I was trying to type. 

Sandy was quiet and careful not to offend, whereas Roxie raucously meows her opinions about everything (mostly in the middle of the night).   

Roxie bites me; Sandy never did.  The worse thing Sandy ever did to me was to infiltrate my diary when I was fourteen to write in it that he needed a bra more than I did.  

 Sandy was independent, while I have to do EVERYTHING for Roxie.  I have to feed her and give her water and clean out her damned sandbox and lug up her 100 pound bag of litter while she tries to trip me.

But I guess somehow, in spite of all the trouble and probably for all the wrong reasons, I can feel this cat beginning to patch up that big hole in my heart.  She looks as happy as a cat can look when I come home, and she purrs when she feels like it, and I'm fairly certain her escapades will give me something new to write about.  And though there will never be a substitute for my only sibling, someone who knew me from when I was a tiny orange-haired baby and truly loved me in spite of myself, this new cat of mine makes me laugh and gives me someone to talk to in the morning and helps me forget that I am now a brotherless child.

I think Sandy would understand.

Mama's Last Cat

I look at the cat standing sentry atop my refrigerator. It isn’t a real cat; it’s a wooden cat, painted a jaunty black and white stripe with its tail impossibly long.

It isn’t even my cat. It had been my mother’s, a present I’d purchased for her at an import store to feed her feline fix and to remind her of traveling the world and how much she loved a good street market.

My beautiful, brilliant mother, laid out in a mechanical, antiseptic bed, underpants and teeth taken from her during her last sad days on this earth. Alternating between rage and sweet confusion, all she had left of the material world was this cat peering over her untouched dinners and a rendition of Van Gogh’s sunflowers hanging askew on the opposite wall next to a sign promising Sunday chapel services.

“I want to go home. Please take me home,” she begged, although home was thousands of miles away, an impossible gift from a daughter who would have if she could have, a grown up little girl who would have given anything to be able to.

My daddy always said the only good cat was a dead cat, but he put up with at least one at all times I can remember because of his love for my mama. But Daddy left us years ago.

On her last day, during my last visit, Mama looked up from her confusion and laughed as I saw her fingers trail an invisible arc in the air. “I just saw a cat jump up on that table and then run out the door,” she said, her eyes offering a passable semblance of merry.

I kissed her goodnight, told her I loved her and left, never to see my mother again.

I know in my heart it was my daddy who sent that particular dead cat to come get my mama to take her home.

The sunflowers greet me each day as I rise and shine. The striped cat watches over me as I break my morning bread.