Digging

I buried another friend this morning, this one too suddenly and too soon. I am tired of digging. The ground is too familiar.

The soil is dry and dusty from a long and waterless summer. The grass is gone, nothing left but desiccated roots and sere. There are too many graves out back now, too tightly clustered around the birdbath. Too many markers for too many names of too many familiars and companions. Jasmine, Felicia, Thomas, Sandy, Sara, Smoke. Tina.

I dig through the strata of memories layer by layer, remembering a new joy at each transition. The way she would run purnting to greet me each time I came home. The way she nursed in my ponytail before she discovered Karen's tresses were more suited to her tastes. The way she curled up defensively whenever I draped a blanket across my lap, daring me to move her. The way we napped together in sunshine through lazy winter afternoons, her body a tiny blast furnace. The way she adopted the bright yellow polyester rag with a knot as her favorite toy, moving it from place to place around the house as if challenging me to a game of hide and seek. The way she would stare at me with a confused set to her ears whenever I tried to purr.

Down to five feet the dirt goes from light gray to charcoal then to tan back to gray and finally to white. The colors of her fur. She was the ghost of Felicia, my first familiar, with nearly identical markings in a nearly identical pattern based in gray instead of black. She died at nearly an identical age of a nearly identical condition, both after an otherwise healthy life.

The ground becomes harder as I dig deeper. It holds moisture like my pent up tears. She was as small as my hand when we first brought her home, taken from her mother too young and abandoned in a box. For the first few weeks, she would stay wherever I left her, crying for permission before jumping off the bed. She would wait until she saw me, then run to greet me when I came in sight. I've never had a creature imprint on me like that before, never felt quite that burden of responsibility. In the end, she looked to me for help I could not give.

Deeper, the hole interferes with my digging. By the end, I struggle like she did. At least I have Karen to ease the final memories away. Through her life she would call out and freeze whenever she woke up from a nightmare. She would wait like a kitten until I called to her or went to find her, greeting me enthusiastically when she spotted me. I wish our roles were reversed, that I could wake from this long, dark dream to the comfort of her purrs.

I carve out the chamber where she is resting now. Karen folds her in her handcrafted blanket, tying it in a canvas shroud with her favorite things, a brush, her rag, some leaves of catnip, a crocheted ball, a string of plastic beads. We add some jade and silver, meaningless to her, but enough to bribe the demon or the ferryman to reach the other side. I sprinkle her shroud with the lavender petals from the final rose of the summer, redolent and just off peak.

There is a hollow sound of dirt hitting canvas, one I hope to forget each time but never do. Each shovelful resonates like the emptiness in my chest. We mound the leftover dirt and cover it with a rainbow of flowers from purple to yellow, pink to purest white.

As the morning dies, we return inside, moving through the empty house in sighs and silence, echoing her missing footsteps, waiting for Mara to emerge to help fill the void she leaves behind.

Pristina Morgan
4/2/99-9/18/08

I miss you, little girl.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III