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2001-07-23 / 1:36 p.m. ~"My Special Girl"~ She follows me into the kitchen every morning, rubs her face against the corner of the wall - there's a cat rub corner thingie there just for that purpose, with plastic spikes for scratching, catching the hair, a little trap for catnip. She loves it. It feels good and it marks her territory. Gladys will come and mark it with her scent later. Norma watches as I make coffee, then she'll run ahead of me into the bathroom, jump way up onto the vanity countertop, which is really high up, and she'll pause to groom a paw, or leg, and I think she's hurt herself, help her if she misses. I wonder about the time when she will only miss. I look at her, she up at me, and I throw my arm, half of my body around her, squeeze her pretty tightly, give her a big kiss on the top of her head, pull away and ask her to "Gimme a kiss", and she butts her head against my jaw. She meows that special love meow reserved for this time, this morning time. This morning I watched her come into the kitchen, and she looked old. I'm sure she was just tired, still waking up, but I suddenly thought of her mortality, as I do almost every morning, and it's not because she's sick, but because I know she will die, one day. One day, both of my special girls, my silly cats, Norma and Gladys, will die, and I know it will be devastating. I worry that I've not taken proper care of them, that they should have had their teeth cleaned over the years, that they should have had their shots, that there was more I could have done, and through my own neglect they will succumb to illnesses that were preventable. So, I looked at Norma and thought about her age, that she's 11 now, and I like to call her "old girl", though she has several years left, but she will die, and I will die too. Like that stupid movie, "Endless Love", when what'shisname turns to Brooke Shields and says, "If you die, I'll die too", and my boyfriend and I used to say it to each other, in goopy baby talk voices, because we thought it was really stupid, but that's how I feel. Gladys is my special girl too, and sometimes I tell her she's my favorite, when Norma is not listening, just so they have both heard the words, though I know they have no clue what I'm saying. I experiment with words, with English, with them. They know a bit, but not all. It's the tonality that seems to mean the most. Morning is when I'm most introspective, when I am most likely to imagine the deaths of both cats, and my own demise, and this morning was no different, me wondering when I will die, how much more time do I have, what will be the cause of death (I imagine cancer), and will N and G outlive me? No answers now, and when I go back to work now, my lunch over, I will tell them I love them, because I think this could be the day some kid starts a fire 6 apartments away and I lose everything, N and G included. I want them to know I love them, that those were my last words to them. Sick, I know. Why should I be obsessed with losing them? Cost of the War in Iraq
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