So long, Harold

May the mice in heaven taste just as sweet

Hey hun, 

Thanks for the nice card you sent about Harold. You know, he was a ragged old grump who may or may not have been possessed, but he had been my odd companion for so many years – and one of the last vestiges of a former life. 

Truth be told, I’m more affected by his passing than I ever thought I would be, probably because it was so unexpected. Everything seemed fine when I got back from Maine. Harold seemed healthy and, as usual, displayed his preference for the sitter by crying out the window as she left. 

While he continued to maintain his kingdom of shredded box springs, I caught up with the neighbors, returned to my regular walks with the girls, and picked up a new stack of paperbacks from the library. 

Then, one afternoon I woke up from a little nap on the couch to find Harold sitting right on my chest like a goddamn raptor. I was frozen, too scared to move for fear that he would go for the jugular. But he just meowed and jumped off, asking to be let out. 

Now, in old age, he preferred the indoors but we used to let him out all the time. It was a short-lived period of relative peace at the cost of a pile of dead rodents on the doorstep. 

Anyway, I opened the screen door and he trotted out onto the porch like he was five years younger. I sat back in the old rocking chair and to my surprise, he curled up by my feet. He fell asleep, even kicking his paws in a dream. I couldn’t believe it, it was almost like he was a different cat who wasn’t constantly plotting my death. 

The next day went by much the same, except that Harold perched on my lap for a minute during our porch time. I was fuckin’ floored. After years spent in some kind of standoff with this cat, had he just realized I was the one feeding him all this time?

Later in the week, on a particularly nice day, I opened the door and called for him to come out and join me. But he didn’t come. Instead of the heavy stomping of paws coming my way, there was silence. My gut told me that something was wrong. 

Finally, after checking all his regular haunts, I found Harold on your Granddad’s old chair in the guest room, curled up in a fading ray of sunshine.

I knew, of course, that he had gone. Not to be morbid, but a body just looks different after death. Suddenly, it seems so much smaller and so much less substantial than you remembered. You can’t imagine how the person you knew could ever fit into such a restrictive frame. 

With Harold, there was simply no way a hundred mice had fallen prey to paws so weak, no way the breeze had tousled fur so limp, no way so small a creature had ruled this household with such fury and malice. 

It was strange, carrying him to the vet. Of course the front desk ladies knew immediately. I had never brought him in wearing anything else than military-grade protection. There wasn’t a need for it anymore.

I cried like a baby while they took him in, and I wasn’t alone. One of the vet techs who once almost lost a finger to Harold sat with me, as if this goddamn cat gave us Stockholm syndrome. 

A week later, I sat on the porch with a little box of Harold’s ashes. It was a kind of morning he would have loved. I realize now that in those last few days he must have been saying goodbye. The vet told me that cats seem to know when their time is up.

The weather felt lovely, despite the early hour. The air felt charged. Have you ever felt that after a death? Ok, don’t call the men in white coats on me, but I always feel a sense of weird excitement in times like this. It’s not that I’m happy, I mean it in the more traditional meaning of the word. 

It’s more like how the morning after a funeral the air will seem fresher, and despite a lack of sleep I’ll feel wide awake. Even as my funeral blacks are sitting in the laundry room, there will be a wild sense of unknown coming towards me at a breakneck speed.  

Not to be all woo-woo, but I think it’s the thinning of the veil. That pulse in the air is carrying the recently departed away as they step out of their body, away from disease and pain. 

No, I’m not drunk, just an old lady waxing philosophical. 

I know that realists and atheists say that there’s nothing after death, and our consciousness just snaps in half like a twig. However, at my age there’s enough I’ve seen and can’t explain to be certain that we have no frickin’ clue what happens after we die. 

Besides, I think that in the pursuit of flipping over every rock and terrorizing giant squids in the deep, we’ve forgotten that humans require a little magic to be OK. Do you know what I mean?

Well, for now Harold will remain on the chair in the guest room. Maybe I’ll release him to the wind one day. There’s no rush. Until then I’ll imagine him running across the field to some other dimension, where he can unleash as much fresh terror as he pleases. 

Just keep this in mind, everything comes to an end. Even those annoying things that get in the way, or make you take a detour, or ruin an antique rug with rancid piss. Everything passes and the air will feel fresh in the morning. 

Love,

Grams