(2005-2024)
Eighteen years nine months twenty days...
(LINCOLN, CA) ~ "Miss Iris Record, formerly of Cottingham Way, passed away peacefully after a brief illness this past Thursday. Miss Record was born in July 2005 in Citrus Heights, California, and spent her early days at the San Juan Foundling Hospital before being adopted and later moving to Lincoln, California. Miss Record succumbed to the age-old ravages of time and passed away quietly in the arms of her best friend and devoted father. Iris Record will be remembered for her quick retort and general disdain for all things dog or human. Diminutive in form but always outspoken, Miss Record had a notable career as a gentile housecat but was honored to serve briefly as a board member and beneficiary of the Mars Foundation for Animal Welfare. Iris Record is predeceased by her sister Isabelle and survived by her parents Jeff and Nancy Record all of Lincoln, California. She is also immediately survived by her brother Clark Record, her brother Justin Record (Melissa), and their daughters Josselin and Jillian of Colfax, California, sister Jennifer Record, of San Diego, and Jacquie Attardo (Steffan) of Long Beach, along with an elderly half-sister, Elizabeth Record also of Lincoln, and a myriad of assorted nieces and nephews. A private cremation is planned with burial at a later date. Donations in her memory may be made to the Mars Foundation."
*******
I rearranged the flowers today. She's been gone five days now. Time has started to cull the older blooms for memories to survive. I realize now she'd have never left me if she didn't think I wasn't going to be okay.
Today though, I am not.
Friday, I picked up her ashes. The cremation services are so over the top. They placed her urn in a blue velvet bag with all sorts of "certificates of cremations" and "what-nots." She would have hated all this falderal and never have chosen "blue." (She said it was a dog's color that no proper cat should ever be seen in...)
I felt the air go out of my lungs when I took her urn out.
Could that really be my Iris in there? God, I sure as hell hope so and it's not some stray alley-cat from Fresno.
*******
There will be those who think it's extremely silly to write about one's dead cat here on the giant "inter-web." They'll say such postings are best left for the sentimentality of Facebook, or the snippets of Instagram, and not here in the rumble-tumble of my unedited existential ramblings and useless genealogical musings.
And I mean really, what sort of nerd/dork writes an obituary for his dead cat?
Yeah me. So fuck off if you don't like it. :)
However, please allow me to get the existential and genealogical part of her life out of the way first:
"She had a pedigree that extended back to the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. Her progenitors are surely buried with Ramses II and Cleopatra. Her ancestors saved Europe from the rodents who brought the Black Death, and their spirits walked with my great-grandmothers to Gallows Hill in 1692."
AND - then She was sent by God to look after me.
*******
She passed away yesterday. Her passing came in a hurried rush. It was as if she had received some call from The Great Beyond and been called on stage to make her debut and that she and we were all late to get her there. It was all unexpectedly expected. She was, after all, a nearly nineteen-year-old spinster who had already lived on borrowed time for years. She was a part of me for well over a quarter of my life.
And yes, I know, she was just a damn cat.
She was also my best friend, and the fact that I was compelled to help usher her over the threshold of the netherworld was no easy task. You see, I adored her. I adored her constant nagging and incessant complaints about the quality of her bed, or food, or when she was lonely or lost and looking for me in just the room next door, or that the dog or vacuum cleaner that were never to fetter her pass.
When I think about her not being here today I feel as if I cannot breathe.
We traveled far together she and I. There was never any doubt that we belonged to each other. In a family filled with cat lovers and historical witches, she was most certainly my familiar. She trusted me. She believed in me. I think that is why it hurts so much to know that I had to decide to end her life and let her life force drain away into my hands last night in that cold doctor's waiting room.
How could I have done this to my best friend?
How can I now be on the other side of Iris?
Iris is a feminine name of Greek origin that means "rainbow". It is also the name of the messenger of the gods among themselves, and the personification of "rainbow". In Latin, the name Iris means "a meaning bringer of joy"
I don't know. Did I make the right decision for her? Was I ethical? Was I selfish? Did I honor her as she deserved? Does it even matter now?
I know there are no answers here. I know that time is supposed to heal all and I am certain that it will slather my heart with forgetfulness for this pain I feel today.
For now, though, I want to hurt a bit. My memories of her lap at the the sand in my old brain and feel like the ebb flow of the tide. I hear her still in the house; the click of her nails on the tile, a distant cry for attention in some far corner.
It's so appropriate to lose her just before the eclipse.
I am heartbroken to have arrived on this other side without "Iris."
God forgive me, my dear dear friend.
RIP
April 2, 2025...One year ago now. I will always remember you my friend...
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