Reason To Cry

“When you lost your happiness

When no one's standing by

When nothing makes any sense

You've got a reason to cry”

                            -Lucinda Williams “Reason to Cry”

I lied. I said I wasn’t going to write about Theo. Instead, I was going to let what I wrote about him in my hopefully soon to be published memoir speak for itself. It’s one of my favorite parts of the entire book. 

But yesterday afternoon I had a dream where I was holding him. I knew it was a dream because I knew there will be no more holding him, being with him. I tried to force myself awake because my heart is broken enough, I don’t need a moment of delusion, a moment where I think he’s still with me when he’s not. I knew when I awoke I would feel even sadder, if that was even possible, and I knew that I have to move forward in a world without Theo as I did with the others that came before. I let him go for real last Tuesday so it was heartbreaking to let him go again even if it was only a dream.

Of course the last thing Theo would want is for me to be heartbroken. He spent a lifetime purring in my arms, butting his head against mine, rubbing up against my legs and his favorite way to show affection, licking my legs. Maybe it was always me projecting the goofy look of wonder on Theo’s face but he was full of awe and sweetness whether it was playing or napping with his siblings or staring at the dog living next door, or attacking the newest catnip toy I brought home for him. One of his many idiosyncrasies was he loved to pace, walking around in an elongated circle in the hallway of our upstairs bedroom. His namesake, jazz musician Thelonious Monk, was a pacer, walking around in circles during his performances. Theo was the first cat I named myself. I somehow stumbled upon the perfect name for him. He was my jazz cat.

More than any other cat I’ve known he loved routine. He knew the exact minute his next meal was scheduled and if I dawdled any, he did everything in his power to get me into the kitchen to feed he and his brothers. 

That’s why life during and since 2020 was so hard on Theo. Everything changed overnight. No doubt his own physical health was starting to decline but Theo clearly became depressed when Diego-San died. For the first time in his life he did the cat like thing of napping most of the day. He lost his wonder.  One of the most purposeful things for me during this pandemic was to try and find ways to help Theo feel a little bit better.  I truly question if I did so in anyway.

We spent 18 years together and during the past three I so appreciated how Theo was a remainder/reminder of so many of the most significant moments of my life just as my faith in so many things was wavering. He was always there when I needed him most. 

So what did I write in my memoir? I wrote that during the final years of Theo’s life I finally found our true bond. I was so unfair to him. I brought him into a home where two other cats had already formed a strong bond and it was up to him to figure out how to fit in. And then when I thought I was doing him a favor by bringing in more cats to our house when Thompson and Diego-San died, he again was the third wheel as Norma and Alias coming from the same litter had bonded from the start. The perpetual outsider trying to find a way to fit in. That was what I forced upon Theo. And in the end it was the the bond we held in common. I knew exactly how that felt facing a lifetime of that outsider, third wheel feeling. That Theo was so successful in navigating his way into getting his feline siblings to accept him I will forever be in awe of. 

He was goofy and sweet and I loved him dearly.