View current page
...more recent posts
The Death Of Herman
Everyone is awkward around death. The veterinarians this morning were stalling with the inevitable news which had been implied in yesterday's phone messages. The bad news could only be death. Living patients were dealt with while Lorina and I waited for the attending doctor to doctor up her we don't know what happen he just died speech. Herman's reign at the top of the hill ended with two weeks worth of painful prodding and incising, the removal of a pebble from his bladder, more exploratory prodding and incising, more sickness, death, cold storage, and a sneaky exit out the back door of the veterinarians office, in the parking lot of which he was delivered to my outstretched hands. As a blue paper wrapped frozen package he reminded me of nothing, the lifting and transporting just a task. The shape not at all cat-like.
Herman was the bastard step-child of cats. Hoisted from one almost loving family to the next, leaving a trail of eye spooge and chewed up shoes from Brooklyn to Upstate to the DC suburbs and finally, a palatial 40 acre estate nestled in the foothills of the Shenandoah mountains, Herman was at the same time loveable, and, just a bit of an aggravating son-of-a-bitch. I will nonetheless have fond memories of our almost two years together and can say with the utmost sincerity that he was a good enough pal for that time even though I wouldn't let no human pal of mine wake me up yowling at five in the morning for no good reason.
As a Kung Fu sparring partner he was second to none.
Lorina shed a couple of tears at the office but I think as much as any reason out of politeness to the doctor, who seemed really upset and not sure of how to handle the proceedings. I tried to communicate that I held in my heart no enmity nor blame of wrong-doing and yet we were held captive for an amount of time which seemed longer than optimum, in a room the size of a broom closet. The doctor wielded her sorrow like a blunt object, not sure if she wanted to attack or just remain defensive. I think she was understandably unsure how to phrase the last part and so was dragging out the I'm sorry, we did everything we could, part. The last part was do you want his body and uh I'm sorry but its frozen.
Behind me over there, with its cloth covered foam burnt orange seat, is the last piece of furniture Herman ever shredded, and he did that during his last two day hurrah of feeling over the top perky, between his two nearly back to back multiple day stays at the vet.
When I think back to our first summer together when he jumped up onto my naked back by the pool, with his seventeen pounds of weight behind the claws dug into my flesh, and how he slid a few inches down my back like that, and how I screamed and turned around and shook my fist at him and swatted in his direction with my nearby shirt and how he just stared blankly back with nary a flinch in reaction to my movements, it is that reaction or lack thereof which makes me realize he did have that one essential characteristic of all the cool cats before him. He was inscrutable.
It turned a little cool and drizzly today. A grey day as good as any to bury Herman under that dogwood tree over yonder. Herman RIP.