by Donald Bowerman
A Cat-astrophe named Callie
A few precious moments ago she was in my arms and purring like there would be no tomorrow
January 21, 2002 - 3:33 PM
As I have so often written these epitaphs before, the time has come yet again to pen words that will somehow in their inadequate way portray the life and love of a beloved friend and companion for the last eight years. Her name was Callie and she was one calico cat catastrophe! When it was her desire to draw you into her very private world, however, she would do so with a tenderness and affection few of my other feline children ever showed. I will remember that about her as the grief of her passing settles in and the routines of my life are carried on without her. My little girl was the last of my four children who traveled with me to Texas from Missouri in 1996, after my retirement from a career in law enforcement. Callie outlived her two dog brothers and one cat sister. I feel a certain sorrow at having brought them all from the state of their birth and the places they knew so well, realizing now that each is buried in the soil of a distant land.
I will miss the feeling of my little girl rubbing against me as I stand in the kitchen tonight. From this moment on, it will be a lonesome home without her, more so to realize that she will no longer wait at the front door for my daily return. It is difficult to watch now as her fellow feline, Pepper, about whom she seemed to have much disapproval, wanders about our home in search of his favorite four-legged plaything. Pepper knows something is amiss, that something is not the way it had been every day of his three-plus years with her. He is walking to each spot where Callie once lay and rested, sniffing the air for her, finding only her absence.
She is at rest now, free from the afflictions that had come to plague her for a year or so. Each time she seemed to bounce backjust not this last time. The doctor believes she had developed a cancer of some kind that was putting pressure behind her left eye and which had quite possibly caused her to experience seizures, as well. But ever the trooper, she put on her best show as long as she could, and that was right up until the end. She seemed so aware and afraid in that veterinarian clinic until the nurse put her back into my arms, she heard my voice, and began to purr again. She was where she wanted to be and she was where I wanted herwhere I want her now if only it could be. But one of God's newest little angels needed her more...
Callie has gone to her eternal home. She has gone to that distant shore where I believe with everything I know to be true that she was welcomed by other loving arms, the smiles of happy children and adults, and even the joyful bark of a few dogs with whom she once lived. My dog, Smoky, was waiting for her there and I believe when he barked joyfully at her arrival she knew everything would be all right. You know, I think she even got to meet some of those brothers and sisters of hers from whom she was separated fourteen years ago. I am sure her real momma was there and even that father she probably never knew! Callie is happy again, without the discomfort she felt in her last days, free to roam those gilded boulevards and fragrant heavenly meadows. I will see her again somedayand we will rejoice and be glad, won't we, little girl?
But now I am alone...death has claimed another of my life's companions, yet another of God's creatures that I once called one of my children. I will retire to my bed tonight and not find Callie lying upon it as she had always done. I will awaken on the morrow and she will not be there to greet me with her beautiful face. As I pen these words I am looking now at my late paternal grandmother's rocking chair in which Callie loved to take her frequent naps. It is empty and so too is an inescapable part of me. The time has come to weep, but I know it will help to heal my broken heart. I will hold closely to my breast her other companion, Pepper, and I will whisper softly to him that I love him and that he has filled my life with so much happiness. In what seems like an eternity ago as I held Callie for the last time I spoke those same words to her, too. I kissed her one last time and then we parted.
She didn't look back and I couldn't
Several months ago a dark day befell the world as the evil of man's inhumanity towards his fellow man raised its wicked head. It was a day that forever altered lives around the world. Just as my life was altered then, so too it is altered again today. A beloved companion has departed from me and I know only the sorrow we mortals feel when a loved one leaves our sight forever. But that loss of sight is only in me. My Callie is in Heaven and she is happy in the arms of another. In time, when this pain has left me, I will speak her name and tears will not fill my eyes.
As they do now
Donald A. Bowerman
Valley Ranch, Texas
January 21, 2002