Gone to His Eternal Sleep

I just had my cat put down at the vet's. His name was Jaidee, and he was the sweetest cat anyone could ever have. I had him almost fifteen years before he developed intestinal cancer, much like my Tao-Tao did a few years ago, and we knew he wouldn't be around long after his diagnosis. Prednisolone kept him going for a couple of months, and I was hoping he could hang on till my wife returned from Thailand in three days so she could see him one last time and say a proper goodbye.

But Jaidee suddenly seemed to have trouble passing stool yesterday and began looking very uncomfortable, so I took him to the vet today virtually certain it would be a one-way trip for him. I was right.

Perhaps it's better that my wife wasn't here to deal with that. But now I'm home alone and very, very sad. For as much as I've loved the cats who have blessed my life and would dearly love, even now, to adopt another, it doesn't seem financially feasible at my age and under my circumstances. Not if I want to be here long enough and financially able to provide another cat with the lasting love and every kind of care it might need for the rest of its precious life.

I want to share my pain with others. But the truth is, no one cares or can care as much as I do. Even if they've had and lost cats, their cats weren't my cat, and they weren't me. And, when you come right down to it, I wouldn't even want anyone to feel as bad as I do right now. Or I would and I wouldn't.

I won't keep on about this. Jaidee has gone to his eternal sleep, and I may not be terribly far behind. Not from "unnatural" causes but from pathologically natural ones.

All I can say is that I don't believe in a heavenly afterlife, but if there is one, I'd want the cats I've loved over the past thirty-five years to be part of it, and especially my sweet Jaidee. There'll never be another like him.

A Melancholic Birthday

Another birthday came and went yesterday. In some ways, the year preceding it was a typical year for me. I won’t dwell on that. But some noteworthy things, at least to me, occurred.

My wife and I caught Covid on separate occasions after being fully vaccinated and boosted, and it was no worse than a standard cold for either of us, except that I had an unusual sore throat for a couple or so days.

I saw a local 15-year-old bowling prodigy named Saphyre compete in the U.S. Women’s Open in Rohnert Park last August and stun and thrill me by beating some of the best female bowlers on the planet, including my beloved New Hui Fen, on one of the oil patterns. Later, she took Jillian Martin, probably the most heralded female junior bowling phenom ever, to the wire in two Storm Youth Championship tournaments and convinced me that she’s a young sorceress with her amusingly nonchalant bowling style, deadly powerful release, and deceptively wizardlike lane play skills. Watching and rooting for her has been one of my biggest recent if not lifetime surprises and pleasures.

Speaking of bowling, I shot a 300 in league a few months ago, and a 290 and 278 more recently, but I’ve struggled to carry consistently and score well on the new lanes and oil, which is all the more frustrating when I see so many others in my league tearing them up. But I attribute some of this struggle to my unwillingness to put in the time and effort to get and do better. Isn’t that a central element in the story of my life? And can I change that? Will I change that? Not only in bowling but in every other important respect?

My mom seems to be doing well as she approaches 85, but I’m not sure how forthcoming she’s been about her health and well-being. One concern I have is that one of her step-daughters who lives nearby and has been so helpful to her may be moving away before long, and I will need to take up the slack that I may be ill-equipped to do.

My wife is still with me but I don’t know for how long as her parents back home get older and older and become more dependent on her overworked younger sister. When she finally does leave, my life may change drastically.

Finally, arguably the most important event of the year since my previous birthday and unquestionably one of the most important of my entire life occurred less than two weeks before my newest birthday. My best friend of over fifty years, Craig, was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound to the head miles away from his residence in Southern California. The police and medical examiner have ruled it a suicide, but I and everyone I know who knew him just can’t believe he killed himself. There were no signs whatsoever, even in retrospect, that pointed to suicidal ideation or tendencies, and there’s no apparent reason why he would have done such a thing and many reasons why he wouldn’t have done that to himself at this point in his life when he had so many things he enjoyed doing and so many achievable plans for his retirement. Yet, it looks like his family has accepted the ruling and that he will be cremated and buried soon.

I’ve been shy and reclusive all my life and have had no other friends for as long as I did Craig or shared as much with any other male friends over the decades as I did with Craig. I got drunk for the first time with him. I saw my first Bruce Lee movie and countless other movies thereafter with him. I went to my first Mahavishnu Orchestra concert and many concerts later on with him. We bowled together. Played basketball together. Spent countless hours in each other’s company or on the phone talking about this and that.

Even as our interests diverged over the past few years and we had far less contact than we used to, it was reassuring to know he was out there and was someone I could turn to if I ever needed him, and I hope and think he felt the same about me.

His sudden and mystifying departure has left a hole in my life. I will miss not only our phone conversations, occasional visits, Facebook messagings, and so much else, but I will miss the warm reassurance that the potential for sharing a reminiscence or other simple pleasures of our abiding friendship exists even when it resides in the background. For now it exists no longer.

Craig told me that after his parents died years ago, he became acquainted with a psychic who could communicate with his parents and enable him to communicate with them through her. I’m very skeptical of this but not completely convinced it wasn’t true; he told me some amazing things about what he learned from that communication that gave me pause. And so I wish that if my friend does consciously survive in a different or alternate realm in which he retains awareness of what’s going on here and an emotional connection with family and friends still inhabiting this plane of existence, he will find a way to reach out to that psychic so that she can reach out to me and tell me what really happened to him and why, and so that I’ll really know there’s life beyond death.

And now I look toward another year with plans and goals to fulfill, new friendships to forge and old ones to strengthen, new challenges to face, and all without the reassuring constant in my life that was Craig.

RIP, Old Friend

I learned last night that my best friend of over fifty years died of undisclosed causes sometime Saturday night or Sunday and his body was found in another county than where he lived. The details are very murky so far, but I’m hoping to learn more over time.

He had retired very recently and was looking forward to traveling the world to see new sights, meet new people, play poker, at which he was quite proficient, and live the good life he had worked so long and so hard to be able to enjoy and surely would have.

He and I had so many fun times together going all the way back to the late 60’s. We met in a junior bowling league, played basketball, got drunk for the first time, attended many great Bay Area concerts, saw scores of movies, especially of the martial arts variety, and hung out a lot. Over the years, our interests and activities increasingly diverged and we’d had very little contact recently, but we were still and would have always been there for each other if needed.

I don’t know yet what happened to him and am still getting over the shock of his sudden and very unexpected death, but I’ll miss him.

Rest In Peace, old friend.