tabby ovenbird I had forgotten the day your cat died. It took a twenty-five year old journal entry to remind me. Do you remember? We had only been dating a few months. We had dinner at your parents’ house and we were chatting with your dad when your mom called from the hallway. Her voice was strange. “I don’t think he’s alive,” she said as she stood over the orange striped body. He hadn’t been sick. He showed no signs of distress in the hours prior to his leaving. His body just quit in mid leap, all at once, like a vacuum cleaner suddenly unplugged from the wall, all roaring energy…then nothing. You took his body and went out to the back yard. I was afraid. You loved that cat and I didn’t know what love’s unravelling would do to you. Your father followed but soon came back inside. “Is he okay?” I asked. “No,” said your father. I pushed open the back door. “I wouldn’t go out there,” your father warned, but I didn’t listen. I found you in the dark, using a shovel like a weapon, eviscerating the ground as if you could somehow carve out the piece of you that was hurting. There was so much rage in you then. So much grief, so much violence. Your father came to stand beside you. He took the shovel from your hands. He put a stethoscope to your cat’s chest to make sure that he was gone, then he wrapped him in a towel and put him in the grave you’d made with your despair. I held you and I cried and suddenly you were trying to comfort me, as if I was the one in need of care, as if I was the one who had lost something. You were like that–so full of unpredictable wilds, but you loved me and that always won out. I’ve forgotten almost everything, it seems, but I haven’t forgotten that. The fact that you loved me once is nearly all that remains. 260912 what's it to you? who go blather from