SoCS — Silence

Badge by: Doobster @ Mindful Digressions

 

This post is part of Linda G Hill’s “Stream of Consciousness Saturday”  –– Click and read, click and join in!

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “pat/pet/pit/pot/put.”  Use any, use all or have fun with words that contain them!

 

 

From Linda’s list, I have chosen the word “pet” in memory of my cat who died last week. I can’t say that I’ve ever really been a cat person, but as far as cats go, ours was pretty cool. I brought him home on a whim from a rescue group. I think he was almost a year old then. He wasn’t a “typical” cat, but at the beginning, he was a good buddy for our two greyhounds. They loved each other. He wasn’t cuddly, he wasn’t Purr-y, but he lived with us for 17 years.

Rafter-cat, you only knew one word. I guess there are cats that have special meows to mean “I’m hungry” or “I want outside” or “come play with me” but not you. You just had that one insistent, loud, whiny meow. You said it when you were hungry, when you were upset at being in your kennel when we had to take you to the vet, when you wanted to come upstairs and the door was closed…and you said it all the time! In fact, I often tired of hearing it. I told you to be quiet so many times.

But the day before yesterday, I didn’t hear you say it. I didn’t hear you when you said “I’m leaving now.” I suppose you said it while we were at work, and nobody heard you.  I came home and I didn’t think about you at all. I went about my business. If anyone had asked, I would have supposed you were sleeping in your box; your life as a 17-year-old kitty wasn’t too exciting. But around 7pm when I normally heard you ask for food, I heard nothing.  And I’m sorry to say that I didn’t even notice the silence. I went downstairs a bit later, just thinking, “oh, I guess I’d better feed the cat.”

I saw you lying there next to your dish. I thought you were gone, and I went to your side. Your little paws were so cold. But you moved! I rushed you to the vet, but I knew when I put you in the car and you didn’t meow, that I wouldn’t be bringing you back home. You were always the loudest in the car. I honestly thought you’d burst a vocal cord one day doing that! I want you to know that I’m sorry your days as an old kitty cat were not as filled with care as they should have been. But I hope you had a good 17 years all the same. You were the last of our furry friends to leave us, so many years after your greyhound buddies.

I’m sorry that I didn’t check on you right away when I got home last week, and I hope you weren’t suffering. I hope that pets get to go to heaven. I suspect that your kitty consciousness left with your last meow, which was spoken sometime in the afternoon, heard by nobody, echoing in the silent house. Good-bye, Rafter.