Goodbye (?) Wilhelm

 On April 30, 2014, there was a major storm.  Not a named one, or an official tropical storm, but a mighty deluge.  And someone from Parking Services showed up at Bob's office with a tiny wet kitten, maybe two weeks old, that someone had grabbed from a gutter.  We never did find out who, or who passed it on, or who asked the guy from Parking Services to take it to "that guy in Environmental Studies who takes care of animals."

So, thus dramatically, young Wilhelm entered our lives.

We tried to name him equally dramatically.  Walpurgis, for Walpurgisnacht, a night of wild magic (which is on the night of April 30, the day we got him).  Nope.  Prospero, for the tempest in which we got him.  Big no on that too.  Then, when he was demanding his bottle, he let loose with a huge yell for such a small kitten.  "What's with the cat Wilhelm??" I asked. And there it was.

[digression:  In movies, the characteristic scream of someone falling off a cliff or a horse is called the Wilhelm scream (you hear it a lot in Star Wars). By extrapolation, the iconic cartoon sound of a cat scream, usually from an alley, is called a cat Wilhelm.]

Any vet will tell you that bottle babies often turn into somewhat neurotic cats.  So it was with him--sweet and loving, but also easily over stimulated and prone to using his teeth.  Got frustrated at being kept indoors.  Tended to get stressed out and nip ankles.

Of my 9 cats, 5 are strictly indoor cats.  Three of the others (Nazgul, Hamish, and Apache) just showed up as adults, used to being outside.  My plan was to have Wilhelm as an indoor cat, but he was having none of it.  I understand that there are dangers to letting a cat out.  But there is also a great deal of joy in having one that wants to follow you around the yard, that comes running up when you step outside, or trots to the car to meet you when you come home.  Maybe it's because of the trace of the wild that all cats have.  There's magic in the bond.

He was a homebody.  I could always spot him anytime I stepped outside (if not, he would trot up from wherever if I called).  He was the main one who would run to the car to greet me.  

You may notice that I'm speaking in past tense.  The outside cats (known collectively as the BoyCats) come in at night.  If cats are going to wander, night is when it happens.  We also have critters like coyotes around (although I haven't seen any lately).  Come nightfall, they trot in.

But two weeks ago, August 7, he didn't trot in.  I had seen him about an hour earlier.  The other three cats were behaving normally.  I didn't think anything was amiss, and figured he would show up soon.

But he never did.  Something happened to him, and I might never know what.  It's the not knowing that hurts so much.  Did he get stuck somewhere?  Injured? Trapped? Attacked?

People have tried to console me.  "Cats can take care of themselves" (that's a myth.  No they can't, if they've been used to being fed their entire lives.)  "Oh, they just wander off - he'll come back someday "(another myth--cats are territorial and come back to home turf).  "Oh, he probably got himself adopted by another family" (as Bob and I were pretty solitary, he was *very* spooky around strangers.)

And yes, I've done flyers and social media and I check shelter pictures every day.  But I have to accept that my little furry friend, my Mama's boy, is gone.   And I don't even have Bob's shoulder to cry on.

I miss you, my little one (yes, he was still called the Little Cat, at some 6 years old and 15 pounds).  I pray that you didn't suffer.  I love you.

Reef Deployment

 Last May I wrote about building Bob's memorial reef.

On July 17 it was lowered into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

I wasn't there.

We had fairly short notice.  On July 10 we were told "sometime next week".  On the 15th the notification was "it will be the 16th or 17th."  By the afternoon of the 15th the email said 7:00 a.m. on the 17th.

It was to be a family funeral of sorts.  We would all meet very early at Della and Don's at Mexico beach (it takes time to load and unload a boat and and get out to the site).  I realized that in order to get there on time I would have to leave by 4:30 in the morning.  I don't like driving at night, and much of the drive is through isolated areas where many deer would be feeding, so I planned on going down the evening before and spending the night there.  Amanda, Robert, and the kids would join us the next morning.

About an hour before I left, I got a call from Amanda.  Two of her lab partners were sick and being tested for Covid.  And one of Dane's co-workers had tested positive.  We talked for awhile, and admitted that she had to do the adult thing and keep the family at home.  So it would just be Della, Don, and myself.   I got out my suitcase.

Then realized I couldn't do it.

One of my co-workers was also out with a respiratory illness.  She gets one every year about this time, and while her Covid results hadn't been returned yet, her doctor was pretty certain it was a bacterial infection.

So I don't know if I used her illness as a reason or an excuse.  But I called Della and told her I wasn't coming.

The truth is that I realized I couldn't handle it.  I couldn't go out there, watch his memorial be winched down into the water, and then drive home alone to an empty house.  I hurt enough; I didn't have to beat myself up more.  And, for me, the pouring of the reef had been his funeral.  I didn't need a second one.

The deployment didn't go quite as planned.  The ship with the reefs got caught behind a coal barge that had grounded so was four hours late.  In that time a squall came up which knocked Don's boat around a lot, but fortunately cleared within an hour, and they watched the reef being deployed.

I felt calmer after that.  I didn't realize that I was stressing over something left undone, that another milestone had to be passed.  But wistful and sad.

The head of the artificial reef association (Bob Cox) had let me know that he would take pictures and videos of the deployment.  I did not know that he would edit and set to music a very lovely video of the reef in place. It was posted last week.

Of course I cried.  But the part that was uplifting, that actually gave me happiness, was the school of little fish that were dancing around it, claiming it as their new home.

A pyramid of cement and limestone rocks may not be everyone's idea of a memorial.  But I think of the graveyard scene from Phantom of the Opera:

"Passing bells, and sculpted angels

Cold and monumental

Seem for you the wrong companions

You were warm and gentle"

Yes, Bob was warm and gentle, and welcomed all life.  This is where he needed to be.