2012 so far, a list

1. Cabernet

2. CT scan

3. Endoscopy

4. Stent

5. Cabernet

6. CT scan

7. Cabernet

8. PET scan

9. Cabernet

10. Endoscopy

11. Stent

12. Radiation

13. Cabernet

14. Gemcitabine

15. Fatigue

16. Swelling

17. Nadir

18. Nadir

19. Nadir

20. Nadir

21. Cabernet

22. CT scan

My New York City Marathon, Part Two

Part one:  http://alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-new-york-city-marathon-part-one.html

The first weekend in November came. The day before the marathon, I drove down to Manhattan with my friend Cindy. I don’t remember much about the two nights we were in Manhattan. I remember waiting in line a lot. We took a cab to the marathon expo and had to wait in line to get my race number and t-shirt. That night we went to the runners’ pasta dinner near Tavern on the Green in Central Park, and we waited in line close to two hours to get in. I remember thinking at one point, “This is ridiculous. Maybe we should leave.” But by then we were near the front of the line. 

We sat at a round table with a white table cloth. We sat with lots of other runners from many different countries. I remember being really tired and being worried that I’d done too much standing. You’re not supposed do much of anything but rest the day before you run a marathon.  

I remember meeting Wendy and Pam the next morning in the lobby of the hotel, then going to the New York Public Library.  I don’t know how we got there. I don’t remember walking, but I don’t remember taking a taxi either. We stood in line forever there, waiting for the marathon buses to take us to the start of the race at Staten Island. 

I remember sitting around for hours in the cold along with thousands of other runners. I remember Linda walking by, and calling out to her. We were giddy and laughed about meeting up. The fact that we actually ran into one another there still astounds me to this day. There were 25,000 people there. The chances of meeting up on purpose were slim. Meeting up by accident was just ridiculous and random. It was wonderful. I haven’t seen her since.  

I remember walking to the starting line, which was not as organized as Boston’s. We had no idea where to stand. Those of us with one bib color were directed to one level of the bridge. Those with the other color went to a different bridge level.  There was a lot of shoving. 

Then we began. I remember feeling panicked and claustrophobic. There were tall men all around me and I remember worrying about getting an elbow in my eye. I remember getting kicked in the knees. I remember running across the bridge and feeling like I wanted to throw up when I saw the gap in the skyline where the World Trade Center towers once stood. I remember entering Brooklyn and seeing the crowds of people and thinking, “These crowds are good, but Boston is better.” 

I remember running on the “feeling groovy” Queensboro Bridge back into Manhattan and it being deathly quiet; the only sounds the slapping of sneakers on cement and Springsteen singing “Born to Run.” Someone had left a boom box off to one side, at the center of the bridge. 

I remember nearing the end of the bridge and hearing grinding like bulldozers, and thinking. “What on earth are road crews doing out here on a marathon course on a Sunday?”

I remember plodding down the curving exit ramp onto First Avenue to discover that the noise wasn’t coming from machinery. It was coming from the screaming hordes lining both sides of the road. I remember the rush of adrenaline and joy and a feeling of immense power as I ran down this wide open stage with so many other runners. I remember thinking, “You still have ten miles to go, you better slow down.” I didn’t slow down.

I remember my quadriceps turning to wood and spears jabbing my knee caps as I crossed a small bridge into the Bronx. I remember the sudden quiet of the Bronx and remember hating that part of the route. I remember the ridges of the road biting into the soles of my feet.

I remember crossing back into Manhattan and the explosion of screams and music that greeted me. There were gospel choirs everywhere. Spectators lined two and three deep.  I remember running toward Central Park and hitting hills and stopping to walk for the first time and thinking, “This isn’t done yet?”  

I remember waving to my friend Cindy, then turning into Central Park and narrower pathways and running past a well-off couple, a stocky man in a fedora and tailored wool coat. The woman wore make up and high heels and a long fur coat. They were holding a sign and looking into every runner’s face. The sign said “Linda we’re proud of you” or something like that, and had my Linda’s race number.  Crazy. What are the odds? 

I remember lots of leaves on the trees and finishing the race and seeing no one I knew and having to ask someone where I could find a space blanket and get my finisher’s medal. I remember having to ask where to go to return my timing chip, and taking it off myself and being told to dump it in a bucket at a street corner. I remember hoping the chip wouldn’t get lost or stolen and hoping I wouldn’t get charged for it.

I remember being cold and looking for my friend Cindy in the family meeting area. I waited a long time. I remember asking many bystanders if I could use their cell phones, and having just one person let me. I tried calling Cindy, but the reception was bad and we couldn’t hear each other. 

I remember starting to walk back to the hotel, which was miles away, past the Empire State Building. I remember stopping in restaurants along the way and asking if I could use the phone and getting refused. I remember feeling cold and alone and resigned.  

I remember meeting up with two soldiers. They wore fatigues and heavy backpacks. They wore bunny ears made of tinfoil and pink paper. Their army boots were covered in salty lacework. I walked back all the way past Times Square with them. They were from England and had run the marathon for a charity. They had run in honor of a little girl who was fighting cancer. They’d arrived from England that morning. They’d done a marathon in England the day before. 

I remember asking them how they were able to do that. “What got you through the race?” I remember one said he’d taken 2,400 mg of Advil. 

I remember laughing with them and feeling not so alone.

I made it back to the hotel, where my friend was freaking out because she had no idea what had happened to me. She said she’d waited for me for hours at the family gathering spot. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe I’d gone to the wrong place? My head was spinning.

We ate out that night with a friend from Jersey City. The next morning, before we left, we stopped to pray at the World Trade Center site. There were still all kinds of photos and letters taped to the fences and buildings around the area. There were notes from people still searching for their loved ones. There were prayers and homemade cards too, from all over the world. 

The next day I showed up at work, limping and stiff, holding a copy of the New York Times. I waved it in the air as I approached a colleague. “Hey, I made the front page of the Times,” I called.

“No kidding?” he said. “Cool. Let’s see.”

I handed him the paper and laughed. He did too. On the front was an aerial view of all 25,000 of us, a long line of colored blobs, as we crossed the bridge from Staten Island into Brooklyn. 

I stayed away from the gym for a week and a half. The first night back, I parked the car next to the entrance, under a bright light. I shoved my pocketbook under my seat, just to be safe.  I spent most of the next two hours talking with my gym friends about my time in New York.  

It was 9 p.m. when I got out to the car. Even though the heat was on, it was cold and breezy inside the car. Something wasn’t right. I turned my head to find the back passenger seat window smashed in. I reached under my seat. My pocketbook was gone. 

I remember going back into the gym and calling the police. I stayed up most of the night canceling credit cards and worrying. The next day I got the window repaired, and visited banks to close my accounts, then opened new ones. I went to the registry for a new driver’s license. 

I wore my marathon shirt from Boston 2002, the one I’d run just seven months before. It’s the gold cotton shirt with the blue BAA insignia over the left breast.  I wore it on purpose. I was worn out and feeling vulnerable. Even though I’d just run my third marathon, I needed a reminder that I was strong. I chose to keep that picture when I renewed my license five years ago.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks walking around in a daze. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m writing bad poetry again. I have an ill family member and I am sad. Luckily, I know about being resilient. I know about hard roads. I know about taking things one step at a time. I know about loss. I know about taking the long view. 

I’ve been hitting the gym a lot. I’ve been spending a lot of time with my family. I’ve been spending a lot of time remembering too.  Today I wore my old NYC Marathon shirt all day. On the front is a female runner, holding her arms high and triumphantly. Above that graphic is this: Love it. New York City Marathon. November 3, 2002. I’m glad I ran it. I’m glad I got to write today about running it. I hope I get to run New York again some day.

Winter is coming and chances are good that it’s going to be rough. In a few weeks I have to go for a new license. I’m wondering what I’ll need to wear this time. At least I have this: many many choices.

My New York City Marathon, Part One

Part two:http://alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-new-york-city-marathon-part-two.html

Ten years ago today, I ran the New York City Marathon. I’d almost forgotten I’d run it, even though I have a poster from the marathon hanging in my study. Then I started reading about Hurricane Sandy and how it devastated New York. I read about plans to hold the marathon, then read about plans to cancel it and then realized I was having trouble remembering about my own NYC race.  

So I started going through drawers and closets and plastic bags full of running gear. I found the short sleeved t-shirt that all runners received as part of our entry fee. It was rolled up in a ball at the bottom of a drawer full of old race shirts. I found my finisher ribbon in a box in the spare room closet. I found a photo taken near the start on Staten Island. 

In the background is the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. To the right is a long line of portable toilets. In the foreground are four of us: Me, Wendy, Pam, and another runner, a young woman with dark eyes and straight caramel hair. Linda? Tammy? Her name escapes me now but it was when I saw her face that I began to remember.   

I ran my first marathon, the Boston Marathon, in 2001. My second was Boston 2002. Both times, I ran with the American Liver Foundation’s Run for Research charity team. The RFR is the second largest Boston Athletic Association charity running team, and it was through that great organization that I met Wendy, Pam and many other kind marathoners. 

That second Boston was a pretty tough one. Time-wise, it was one of my best runs. But there was a lot going on at home. For most of my training, my grandmother was dying. She and I were very close. 

“You are like my daughter,” she would say.

“You could be my mother,” I would say. 

I became my daughters’ one and only parent when the girls were quite young. My grandmother would babysit two or three nights a week while I worked. I would take her grocery shopping once a week and bring her to her doctor’s appointments. The three of us ate dinner at her house every Sunday. 

She was seventy-five when my first child was born. She was ninety-one when she died. One Saturday in January 2002, after a long run in Boston, I went to her apartment and found she had collapsed. I called 911. She went into the hospital that night, then to a rehab facility and then to a nursing home. She never went back to her apartment. 

During the next four months, I trained for the Boston Marathon. I tried to be a good mom to my kids, who were then in high school and middle school. I visited my grandmother as often as I could. 

During those months, I could not sit still. I could not focus. I could not sleep. I slept with a notebook and a pen. I would wake up at three in the morning and would write memories. I wrote poetry too. I am not a poet. Among other things I found today, I found that notebook. It has a red cover and a CVS logo. I’m glad I kept it and glad I wrote in it. The memories make me smile. The poems make me cringe, then smile. 

I ran Boston that April with “Nana” written in black magic marker on the front of my orange RFR singlet. One guy on the running team read it and said, “You’re supposed to put your name on the front and the name of the person you’re running for on the back. “ I ignored him. I knew what I was doing.  I wanted to hear people call her name while I ran. 

They did. For 26.2 miles thousands of spectators screamed “Go Nana!” It made me smile.  

My grandmother kept getting worse. She didn’t know us anymore. She stopped eating. Right after Boston, I started training for my first triathlon. I was bouncy and fuzzy. I needed to be busy. My grandmother died five weeks after the marathon, on May 22. It was less sad than you’d think. She’d been leaving us for months.  I was glad she wasn’t suffering any more. I was able to sleep at night again. 

In the weeks after my grandmother’s death, I signed up with Wendy and Pam for the NYC marathon lottery and continued training for the triathlon, which took place at the end of June. I found out I don’t care much for triathlons. I like the running and the biking, but the open water swimming stressed me out. Still, I got through my first one and signed up for a second one in July. I thought maybe the second would be more fun. Plus, all three of us had gotten accepted into the marathon. I needed to stay fit. Triathlon training was a good way to establish a solid cardio base. 

My second triathlon was on a Sunday in July. I did not love that one either. The Wednesday after that, I was out on a brisk ten-mile run, my head full of hopes of setting a new personal record at the NYC Marathon. Seven miles into the run, pounding down a steep hill, I hurt my hamstring. I had to cancel plans to run in the Falmouth Road Race that weekend. I rested a bit and the weekend after that attempted to run the Beach to Beacon race in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. I started limping three miles into that race, then jogged and walked until I finished. 

Many old ladies along the course urged me on: “Don’t give up. You can do it!”

The first time I heard this, I stopped and tried to explain to the woman that I knew I could do it, but I was taking it easy because I was injured. But she wasn’t listening. She was already turned away from me, cheering on someone else.  

I met the caramel-haired young woman from the NYC start --  Linda maybe? -- a few days later, at the physical therapist’s office in Boston. The physical therapist was this great guy I’d met the previous year, when I got injured while training for Boston. He worked with all the injured RFR runners and helped out many other charity runners too.  

I learned that Linda was also running New York and was also injured. I think she had a problem with her iliotibial band. For the next twelve weeks, from August to the end of October, Linda and I would spend hours talking while we subjected our injured bodies to e-stim, deep tissue massages, and other physical therapy tortures. 

The therapist told me that my chances of running New York were iffy. Turns out I had a tear in my hamstring. On his advice, I did most of my training on an elliptical and ran just once a week, indoors on a treadmill. Linda and I would compare training notes every Friday night. We’d get to the therapist’s office around seven or so, and leave around 10. I learned no one in her family was athletic. Neither was she, she said. I learned they all thought she was nuts. I learned she was Portuguese and that she grew up near Central Park and her family still lived near there.  

I haven’t thought about this stuff in years. I’m pretty shocked I remember it all so well.

I need to tell you about my cat

I need to tell you about my cat.

In an earlier blog, I wrote how Zach, my warrior cat, entered my life.  Now I need to tell you how he left. 

I was going through an awful divorce when my grandmother told us her nephew Michael was giving away tabby kittens. Nana used to babysit for me all the time back then. I’d been losing my mind for nearly a year when we got Zach. My girls and I experienced trauma like you watch on the Lifetime Channel, and now I was waitressing four nights a week, was doing grad school one night a week, and was working for a newspaper one or two nights a week. 

Life was chaotic and my babies, just three and five, were spending more time with my grandmother than they were with me.  We were stressed out and hurting and Nana knew it. The last thing I needed was a cat. At least that’s what I thought at the time. 

But it turned out Zach was a great distraction. My nana knew what the girls and I needed better than I did. Though he did wreak havoc on our house.  

The nicest thing I owned back then was a cotton chintz living room set in a pretty peach and celery floral print. It was a wedding gift from my parents.  Within a year of living with Zack, the poor set was a frayed, fur-balled mess.

The second nicest thing I owned was my mom’s country French walnut dining set. My mother got lots of new furniture delivered right before my sister got married in 1988, and I got the dining room set, which was at that point still flawless.  For three years, I kept it spotless. Then Zach joined us and it all went to hell. The legs became his scratching posts. I’d come home from work and find cat puke stuck to the table top.  I tried covering the set, tried locking Zach in rooms, tried spraying him with water. Nothing helped. 

The obstinate little critter wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. What he wanted was to be outside. What he did if we didn’t do what he wanted was scratch everything in sight.   

Zach grew mighty and muscular. He attacked dogs. He attacked visitors. He brought me dead mice and pigeons. Even though I yelled at Zach all the time, he adored me. 

My kingdom for a head pat

His idea of heaven was a pat on the head and a warm patch of cement. If I was sitting outside by the pool, he’d amble over from wherever he’d been napping, usually this overgrown rhododendron in the far corner of the yard. He’d nuzzle my arm until I scratched him in his favorite place, the M marking on his forehead, then he’d crawl under my chair and nap in my shadow. 

I’d come home from work or running errands, and no matter where he was, no matter what critter he was stalking, Zach would hear the putter of the old car and come galloping out to greet me. No matter who else was in the car, he’d walk up to my driver’s side door and wait for me to climb out. He’d butt his head into my legs, and force me to pet him.  

He’d follow me to neighbors’ houses and pace outside until I emerged.  If the neighbor had sliding glass doors, he’d find them and rest back on his haunches and watch us.  I’d wave at him to let him know I was okay. I was not being held captive. I’d yell for him to go home. But he wouldn’t. 

At one point or another one particular neighbor, a lovely woman with spotless expensive furniture, would ask politely if I wanted to let the cat in. I’d look around her house, at the perfect ivory sofa, the polished coffee tables, and I’d shake my head and think of my own scraped up furniture.

“Wouldn’t be right,” I’d say.  I’d make my hand into a claw and make a scraping motion.

“Ah,” the woman would say. She’d nod her head knowingly, but she didn’t really understand. She didn’t have cats. She asked all the time if Zach could come in.

According to my vet, the average lifespan of an outdoor cat is ten years. She was always after me to turn Zach into an indoor cat, but I just couldn’t do that to him. It was always about quality of life for Zach, not quantity. He needed the outdoors.

Those crazy teen years 

 

When Zach hit his teens, he began spending more time inside. He got his outside kicks by lounging in the full sun on the sill of the bay window and watching the cars go by and the birds twitter past.  He started getting friendlier. He’d nose his way onto my lap when I’d watch television. He’d curl up next to me on the couch while I was reading. His new favorite place to sleep, rather than outside under a bush, was on the pillow, next to me.

By age sixteen, Zach had lost all interest in going outside. Instead, he’d follow us around the house. He started sleeping more. He lost muscle tone. He thinned out a bit. But he still had a zest for life.  We had two other cats by then, Winifred and Squeaky Mmm-Bop.  Zach drove them nuts. He’d chase them around the house. He’d growl. He’d lick them into submission. He was still the king, the alpha male. He knew it. They knew it. My girls and I knew it.

Uh oh

Around this time last year, Zach started sleeping on the floor because he couldn’t make it onto my bed any more. I took two blankets and made a nest for him. I did not use old blankets. I used the soft thick blankets I put on my bed and my daughters’ beds. 

Then late in the fall, Zach stopped using the litter box. He started relieving himself next to the box. At first, I was furious with him. I wondered if this was a power ploy. Maybe as he got weaker he needed to maintain his cat king authority by constantly re-establishing his territory? Sometimes I would catch him in mid-pee, and I would yell at him to stop. He wouldn’t. He’d finish, then rush past me and hide under my bed. I realize now that I was frightening the little guy. I was bullying him.  

One day I caught him getting set to pee. He didn’t see me. I stood in the doorway and watched him put his front paws into the box. He tried to lift a back leg, but he couldn’t get it high enough to get it over the side and into the box. He tried many times, and finally gave up and peed on the floor instead. 

I took him to the vet. I’d put off taking him because I was afraid. I was afraid she’d find a blood disease, or a tumor. I was afraid she’d tell me it was time to put him down. Zach was nineteen at this point. He was thinner. He was sleeping a lot. I knew he didn’t have a lot of time left. 

She took some blood and gave Zach three hundred dollars worth of tests. Turned out there was no tumor, no blood problem. He had massive arthritis in his back hips. That was probably why he wasn’t using the litter box. It hurt too much to climb into it. Otherwise, he was in remarkably good health for a cat the age equivalent of a ninety year old human. 

She looked at me carefully. I could put him to sleep if I wanted, she said. But really, there was nothing wrong him. He was getting old, that’s all.

   

I felt relieved. I told her I couldn’t put Zach down for being old. We all get old. We all eventually pee where we shouldn’t. That’s life. 

She agreed. She looked like she felt relieved too.

So my life, for the past few years smooth and uncomplicated, got a teeny bit more difficult. Last year, I was late or nearly late to work every day. Granted, punctuality is not one of my strengths. But last year it got really hard to leave the house every morning. Here’s why.

Zach liked his routines. He always relieved himself around 7:40 every morning, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a few minutes later. The thing is, to get to work on time, I needed to leave the house by 7:45. Here’s something else. Cat pee damages floors. The longer you wait to clean it, the more damage it does to the finish. I stayed around and waited for Zach to pee so I could clean it up fast and minimize damage to the wood floor.

This process would work in reverse each afternoon. I’d come home, clean up the new pee, then head in to say hi to Zach. He’d get up, sometimes slowly but more often extremely slowly, and make his way toward me so I could scratch him right where he liked it, at the black M marking on his forehead. Then he’d lumber into the kitchen, pick at his food, rub up against my legs a little, and go back and nap on his blankie. That’s one thing Zach always did, every day for practically his whole life. No matter what critter he was tormenting, no matter whose yard he was tearing up, Zach always put a halt to what he was doing, and ran up to greet me when I came home. In April, that stopped. 

Now for the inevitable

 

He’d lost even more weight. He was the size of a kitten now. I could feel his bones when I picked him up. My girls and I wondered if he’d make it to his twentieth birthday, May 27.  A few days after Easter, Zach didn’t get up at all. I called the vet and asked what I should do. She asked me a few questions and agreed that she needed to see him. We talked about possibly putting him down. I made an appointment for the next day.

In the morning, Zach got up and walked around a bit. He snarled at the other cats. He rubbed up against my legs. He had a bit to eat and drink. I called the vet and canceled. I asked her if she thought I was a bad person for not keeping the appointment. She said I wasn’t, and that when it was time to put him down, there’d be no question whatsoever. I’d know. 

I started holding Zach more, only now I picked him up with a blanket because he was so bony. I figured if it hurt me to hold him, it must be even more uncomfortable for him to be held. He’d purr sometimes, but not that much. He’d get up to sniff his food a couple of times a day, but he didn't eat much. He’d snarl at the other cats if they were in his way. They’d run and hide. He spent most of his time on the nest of blankets in my room.  Every day, he looked frailer and thinner than the day before. He made it to his twentieth birthday. 

It was a Sunday afternoon in June. I hadn’t seen Zach go to his food bowl since the day before. He’d been laying on his blanket all day. I picked him up and brought him into the kitchen and placed him on the floor. He raised his head and sniffed at the bowl, then closed his eyes and lowered his head. I picked him up and brought him back to my room. I kept checking on him. He never once moved. Late that night I heard him get up. He moaned a little. I heard him walk down the hall. 

The next morning, I found a puddle of urine in the hallway. Zach was asleep on the floor right next to it. I cleaned it up. I cleaned Zach up. I put him on his blankie. I went to work and called the vet as soon as I could. I told her what happened. 

“It’s time. I know it,” I said. 

I took the first appointment that I could: 3:30 that afternoon. I called some friends because I felt like I should tell someone. They offered to drive me. I said no. It wouldn’t be right. Zach hated strangers.  They stressed him out. He loved me. He loved my kids. My kids weren’t around, so it needed to be me. Just me. I didn’t call my girls. I figured, What was the point? I’d be calling them after. Why torture them? Plus, what if I couldn’t go through with it?

All day, I wondered if I was doing the right thing. Maybe I’d get home and everything would be like it had once been. Zach would be on the bay windowsill sleeping in the sun. His ears would perk up as he heard the Honda pull into the driveway. He’d greet me at the door. 

Instead, I arrived home and found Zach lying on floor near his blanket. He didn’t look up when I said his name. He didn’t purr when I bent down and scratched his head. 

Saying good-bye

I didn’t bother searching for the cat carrier. I scooped Zach up in his blankets and we left the house.  I walked around the yard with him in my arms. I pointed out the bad tree where the crows used to sit and scream at him as he hunted for intruders. I showed him his favorite napping place, a rhododendron bush with secret dark passages where the branches met the ground. I showed him the sky he loved to study. I showed him the dark driveway where he’d stretch out in the sun.

He just lay in my arms, his eyes vacant, mouth open slightly. Except for the rise and fall of his belly, he was unresponsive. 

I put him on the floor of the front passenger seat and started the car. As we moved up and down the hills that led to the vet, he moaned. I worried that he was uncomfortable.

“It’ll be okay Zach. I promise.”  I tried not to cry but my eyes kept blurring up. It was hard to see the road. 

I started shaking as I pulled into the parking lot. By the time I entered the reception area I was bawling. The receptionist sized up the situation and before I could walk to her desk she was by my side, leading us to a private room. The doctor was there within seconds. 

I placed Zach on the metal table. She weighed him. He was only nine pounds. At his most ferocious he’d weighed eighteen. He was thirteen pounds when I’d brought him in last fall. She checked his vitals. She nodded, and said, yes, it was time. It was just going to be a matter of a few days, tops, anyhow.

She left the room while I said good-bye to Zach. I didn’t need much time. I’d been saying good-bye to him for months. I doubted he even knew I was there. His eyes were distant. He didn’t respond when I touched him. 

I patted his head right where he liked it, on the M above his eyes, as the vet injected him. I kept telling him I loved him. I don’t think he heard me. He was already somewhere else. But I kept saying it, just in case I was wrong. I’d stopped crying.

His pupils dilated and that was it. 

I kissed his M, and the doctor took him away. The receptionist came in to let me pay the bill privately so I wouldn’t have to be around strangers who might not understand or care. The bill was eighty-one dollars. There were two items. Euthanasia: $81. With Sympathy, $0. 

A few minutes later, the doctor brought him back. He was curled up in a white cardboard box with tape at both ends to hold the cover in place. Someone had written his name on the lid in black marker, and had drawn a heart next to it. Seeing that made me cry again. 

I brought Zach home and buried him myself in the backyard in one of his favorite resting spots, under a pine tree near where the pool deck used to be. Friends offered to come over and help, but I said no. He was my cat. He didn’t like strangers. He liked me. I needed to honor that and see things through to the end. 

It was hard saying good-bye to Zach, but it wasn’t hard burying him. I used to have a perennial garden in the back yard, and still have some silly cement statues lying around. I poked around in some overgrown bushes and found a statue of a smiling lion cub with one paw in the air. I dragged that over to the grave site.  Until I find something better, that’s what will stay there. I can see the statue from the window over the kitchen sink. It’s cute and playful, like Zach when he was a kitten. 

Sometimes I stand at the kitchen window and remember. 

I think of my grandmother, who found Zach for us. She’s gone ten years, though it seems like just yesterday we were having Sunday dinners together.  I think of my little girls, all grown up now, both far away with cats of their own. For just a second, I allow myself to think of the sociopath who tore our lives apart back in 1991. Then I push that rottenness from my brain and remember the four-legged critter who helped us heal. 

Once I had a warrior cat named Zach. How lucky am I?