Further life and times of *liltayinchina*

I was going to write a very different entry tonight, full of smugness and arrogance (and, after tonight’s events, this entry will surely be written…eventually) but my cat is dead and everything is different now. When I was 12 years old, I acquired a stepfather. I started demanding and begging and pleading for a pet. Having no siblings, I apparently needed an accomplice – someone (and Lassie certainly was a someone) to help me get through the rough patches of growing up and becoming a definite someone myself.

My mother, after the usual caution of any parent not wanting a pet of her own and wondering whether her 12 year old really understands what it means to care for a living creature, especially one that can’t tell you what it needs or wants, conceded and took me to the Humane Society. We were in search of a kitten.

There, in a puddle of cuddliness, I saw Lassie. She happened to be the only female in the kitten soup and I picked her out immediately. That first night, she went missing. I searched for her – terrified that she had dematerialized just as quickly as she had seemed to materialize and after uncovering each corner of the whole house, it turned out that she had crawled up on top of some level books on the lower shelf of a book case in my room. Mom and I took a photo of her softness, pooled and cozy among my things and as I write this, I can remember the feeling of my heart expanding that first night. It would expand due to Lassie’s existence many times over, through the course of knowing and caring for her.

We named her Lassie because, in those first days, she went about the house, mewing and mewing as if she was trying to tell us something. Mom, having grown up on the Lassie television show, joked with our little kitten, “What is it Lassie? Has Lillis not finished her homework?” I was new to the concept of naming a creature and liked the idea that my cat was special…was like a very faithful dog – something was so unique about my new best friend and so we named her Lassie.

Tonight, when I read the email from my mother telling me about Lassie’s passing, I realized that my cat lived with my mother, just the two of them, for longer than she lived with me. Realizing this, in time with the parade of memories that include Lassie, it seems that she had a very long and “full” life. I cannot count the endless days of dozing in the sunny spots on the carpet of the house…following the sun as it made its way across the sky. It seems that the best years of my life; the rosiest years, if presented in picture form, have a soft, snuggly yet recalcitrant little critter posed in the most delightful manner all throughout.

Lassie cannot be replaced. And, now that I think hard upon this, she most likely won’t be replaced. Unless, of course, one day, I give in to the demands and pleadings and beggings of a daughter or son who needs an accomplice of his or her own.