Had to say goodbye to Raspberry earlier this week, my sister and my nephews and her cat friends dear family partner of a big ol’ fluffy orange girl (and a my girl too for a too short time).
I’ve said before, many times, our bests of us deserve nothing less than whatever can be said of them and what they’ve meant to and done for us and maybe, what we in turn, did for them …
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Matt came downstairs and woke me in my chair in front of the PC. I have gotten to the point of often just sleeping where I sit there. Truthfully, I don’t sleep much anymore anyway, well, not as much as I would like, or as much as I used to, though cats against my chest or under my arm help. I know what I am and what I like and how I like and how I do, and maybe that is just a sign that I am old and as I try to get in as many words as I possibly can before I can’t and then just nod, but still to be there when I snap out of that nod.
I can’t do that prone though, it has to be a sit. Prone? That is for another time, with cliche’d black umbrella’s and tears in the rain and maybe a veil or two, the ones with cloth dots, but Matt told me that Razzy was going to have to go to the vet and probably, no surely, wouldn’t be coming back.
I paused, hard, and made my way upstairs to see her and rub her face, her nose and whisper.
I have them, the words, always in the back of my head, the memories that will flood when comes that time. They are my comfort in this fur finite, that knowing, that I will be prepared (after our wonder of days spent) as all of our furry bests deserve to be remembered and remembered well, as now, as best I can, snapped out of that nod.
She was a puppy 14/15 years ago with Brady and Jackson and Maria and the JG and puppy days, and they ran tall and excitedly barking in a long backyard, with blurry and funny “in action” puppy pics, man those were moments! A blending of two families and their puppies at a house Maria and I bought that we couldn’t afford while still wanting to live a glory day we were told we could. Now I won’t go into the what of what’s but if you are going to lie to me (as we are all still being lied to) at least have it come with dogs and a few too many cats … that I can at least find palatable.
I moved in with my sister back in August, into her finished basement replete with all the jokes that can come with some old single dude with a couple of cats finding himself to be living in his sister’s basement but wow, it just seems so … so regular … so normal … like it never wasn’t, like those days back in ’00 when she and I and my brother, Nick, shared a house for five years on Mead Ave in Beacon, NY with many fur stories then and some still to come and even small human ones too (Hello Jake! No Jake, don’t grab Benny’s tail or scream in his sleeping ear!! Please! You don’t need future scar stories little man!! And then even to a Matt as well) but Razzy became my girlfriend here (much appreciated Raz as actual girlfriends would inevitably prove to be sorely lacking if there were any or even if I cared of such).
Though the treats I offered surely played a part, I’d like to like to think that maybe you just liked me, I mean I’m not an unlikeable fella, for the most part anyway, and Razzy, you seemed to think so which was most, most welcome. And you? You were beyond likeable and loveable ya big ol’ orange lump.
But I know that she had seen her best days, a lot of them and good ones, if you were with my sis that was a given, but those days were on the back end now, and if treats made her happy, then treats it was to be. It was the same with Shoes, my Big Orange at another time. He wasn’t only on the back end then, but he had a diagnosis that came with a clock. Treats? Well treat away we will Shoey!
So we got into a rhythm, Razzy and I, come home, drop my stuff at the top of the stairs after coming in through the garage or toss it down them with hello’s to Bella and Cricket and a “watch your heads girls” (even though Cricket couldn’t hear or see me but she felt it, she always feels it while Bella just sighed “seriously Steve?”) and Razzy lumbered up on awkward, shaky legs to wait … “Steve’s home!” and get some of those treats and snugs to a knee.
And even some Saturday afternoons too, on the back porch just hanging together in this one Summer sun we had together with brush in hand (you were a hair hairy one girlfriend, I even think I brushed enough fur to build another dog) and some words just thrown into and left in the air above a happy, contented friend.
Dammit Razzy, I knew this was coming, as with Shoes, though yours wasn’t quite as finite, you were a roll of the dice age, a whenever, maybe even on a Christmas day.
But, thank you Razzy, you were just what I needed after moving out of the wonderful place I had been at for 6 years, though even 6 years can still find welcomes wore out, a kingdom of fur and feather downstairs below my feet notwithstanding into a roommate situation to try and save some much needed $$ that proved unworkable, so I found myself wanting of family and comfort then instead, especially after 10 plus years by myself and Razzy, you were right there to welcome me home and help me find that my needing was just of big, floppy old orange girls and sisters and nephews and even some extra cats. I hope too that I was able to give you that one added bonus friend on that back end, one that you even bounced with on occasion, with puppy sounding barks and a Razzy grin, forgetting and damning your age.
I think I might just have to try one of them, by the way Razz, those flat jerky treat things, if only to know what the hell you were all so agog about at my leg on my come homes besides the extra love and attention.
Ok, new unwanted normal now.
Fuck.
Love ya Razz.
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