guiltyred

I couldn't bear to do a proper post yesterday, but there are some things that need to be said in memory of a great cat. Or a great little alien in a fur coat, pretending to be a cat - we're still not too sure.

Syrius Black, aka The Mocker, was either the most catly cat who ever lived or the most uncatlike imposter, depending on what you caught him doing. His aerial and high dive acts were amazing, crossing the divide between fridge and cabinet tops (about 6 feet on a 30-degree upward slope) as though he were just stepping over a line in the sand. He would go up there only to run to the end and jump back down, and then go up again - like a kid on a waterslide. But he didn't eat cat treats or people food. Except ham.

He talked to spirits. I'm convinced that, half the time he went up on the cabinets, he was playing with them. And I believe that they told him exactly how to swipe and hide a contact-lens case so that the monkeys would have a right old time trying to find it.

He lived his life never doubting the ability of his body to do exactly what he wanted it to do. It's a blessing that we never discovered his heart condition, or else he'd have been on medications that would probably have slowed him down, and we would have been afraid to let him run and play - and that, to him, would have been far worse than death. He was a feral thing, in all the best ways: fearless, daring, bold, and mocking all things domesticated.

Syrius ran into our lives the Sunday after September 11, 2001, while we were trying to fix a WTC-shaped hole in our lives. He howled at the door, and we opened it to look, and he helped himself to our hospitality. We tried to "do the right thing" and return him to his owner, an upstairs neighbor, but they didn't really give a damn about him and he was back at our door within the hour. I told him that if he came in again, he was staying. He thought about it, then stepped inside.

Yesterday he left us just abruptly, and there is some speculation here as to whether he'd only been visiting this entire time, as if he had somewhere else he had to be. He never had time to doubt his health or his agility, and for that I'm envious: if I could only be half as fearless as that weird little cat, I could do anything. And then jump down and do it again.

He was weirdly smart, clever as hell, understood far more than he let on, and had the most deliberate and understated purr I've ever heard. For him, life was very much a matter of "for everything there is a time," and it was his clock we all moved to.

The shock of his passing has really hit me hard. It brought back memories of other sudden deaths, and I'm reeling quite a bit. Still, no matter how bad it hurts, I wouldn't turn back time and choose not to know this amazing cat, and I would never begrudge him a quick, painless exit. May I be so lucky when my own time comes.

My last bit of doubt as to whether this was meant to be fell apart as I drove him to the hospital yesterday. We were shepherded all the way to our offramp by a yellow Volkswagen. As a kitty who hung out with spirits, ghosts, and guides, this was the perfect escort, and it told me that things are just as they are meant to be. Doesn't help the pain stop, though. I guess I just need time, and love, for that.

Thank you all for your kind comments and thoughts. Even though I disabled comments on my own post yesterday, I've been reading my sweetie's post and I'm touched by all your kindness. (I couldn't bear to read comments to me AND those to my sweetie, so that's why I disabled comments on mine.)

Please keep our other kitties in your thoughts. I can't help but worry - so many things, you know? Beanie, Sami, and Herme are apparently taking it fairly well, but Wylie is pretty despondent and clingy. This is his second playmate lost to heart failure, and it's got to hurt.