He was a black and white cat, with a light pink nose that had one black spot on it. He had the brightest blue eyes and he was the cuddliest cat I'd ever met. Sometimes when I would be walking home from school he would run up and want held. He was so comical sometimes, we often joked that if Charlie Chaplin was a cat he would be Forgiven. He was my world, really.
I'll have to find the one picture I have of him and post it, he was the most adorable kitten and then the sweetest cat.
Five years ago this month, two months before he turned a year old, Forgiven was hit by a car and killed. We discovered him one morning, on my way to school. I remember feeling paralyzed as I stood by his little lifeless body, crying, on the side of the road. Of course this isn't the most traumatizing incident in my life, for I have had many, but it is an incident that makes my heart ache sometimes.
Last night, possibly because the day he died is rapidly approaching or because I miss him just as much now as I did then, I dreamt about him. At first he was biting me and scratching me, something he never did in real life. Then he turned into his normal self, cuddling and "kissing" like a loving cat does. He seemed frightened by another cat that was lurking the darkness. A cat I couldn't see, except for the eyes. It was understood that the cat in the darkness belonged to Donnie, but it wasn't Lovey (Donnie's cat that lives with his grandmother currently). It was something bigger than a normal cat, but it was a cat nonetheless.
This isn't the first dream I've had with large cats or cats attacking me recently. In fact the past couple of days all I dream about are cats. Have I angered Sekhmet or Bastet, the cat headed Goddesses of Egyptian mythos? Have I become afraid of the feminine side of myself as the "Dream Moods: Dream Dictionary" suggests?
I also dreamt about car accidents. The roads were lined with crashed cars and I was dazed and wandering amongst them. The police officer kept asking why I had left my van, but I couldn't explain it. I couldn't remember.
Then I was dreaming about Barack Obama and I hugged him. I felt guilty because I got snot and tears all over him because of my crying. And I wasn't just crying because of the car accidents everywhere, I was crying because I had been forced to chop off my hair and because of all the accusing eyes watching me. I was surrounded by women, all of us struggling for air. Trying to find our voices in the deafening crowds. It was as if President Obama heard our voiceless screams and he spoke for us. Saying what it was we were trying to say. It was a glorious moment, terrifying and bewildering. But so very true. I have often felt that Obama has been a voice for the women of this country who are still very much oppressed though there are those who would try to convince us otherwise.
And when I woke up I missed my Memere (French for Grandmother) more than anything. It was a deep throb as I got dressed. I looked in the mirror and just wondered what she would think of me if she were still alive. Would she love me as much? Would she be proud of who and what I've become? Would it matter?
I suppose it doesn't matter to think about those things. To think about a cat that hadn't even reached a first birthday. Or a grandmother who has been dead for almost thirteen years now. But today I miss them. And I miss them more with every breath I take. It doesn't help that I have had a new song by Jason Derulo stuck in my head, echoing the ache in my chest.
In honor of my cat, in honor of Memere, in honor of all those that I feel an ache for on this day.
"Today I miss you.
It gets easier, so they say. So why do I feel like this hole in my heart gets bigger whenever I think of you?
Its because I only miss you when I'm breathing."
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