Isn’t It Pretty To Think So

When I go, I want to go like a cat. To be there one moment and gone the next, on my own terms. I now understand why my friend Connor would never say goodbye. He would be there with us one moment and then leave. Sometimes we wouldn’t see him and wouldn’t know he’d left until we missed his presence. It wasn’t sad or disruptive. We just knew that he’d moved on to another engagement or gone home. I saw a sign this morning offering a reward for a black cat that looked like my recently (deceased / wandering / enlisted) pet Mocha. I remember getting a call one night and Sarah plainly explained that he hadn’t come home in awhile. A few nights later, the story was the same, and that was that. Without concrete proof of death, and no way of knowing, even if 99.9% sure of the realistic outcome, Mocha evaded the certainty of death. He just moved on, to another house, to begin another life, to become reincarnated as a kitten, to give another child the gift his presence brought to me, and to get them through tough times by making them laugh as he rolls around like a lunatic in patches of catnip.