My little rowboat is filling up fast

Apparently, you don't get to choose much in this world. Not even when, where and how to grieve. All I get to choose is how I remember the moment. And what I do with it.

(This is the exact moment, at 8:26 pm on Sunday, October 15, when I receive the call)

I'm writing about the movie Adaptation. What it feels like to be back in that place where the line between lovely fairytale and crushing reality starts to blur. Those original late night thoughts continue to curl around me like incense smoke. Smoke that I trace in the shape of an eight. The shape of infinity. Ouroboros. The snake eating its own tail. But how can I go on writing about this right now? How can I go on trying to describe the actual feeling of having the delicate cover that normally separates stone-cold reality from madness, fact from fiction, slowly peel away during a movie? How can I go on trying to figure out why I keep dreaming about her? Her, but not her. Her, crying when I'd expect her to be laughing. Who (or what) was she crying for? Her impending loss, or mine?

(You see, right now it’s 10:04 pm. No less than 98 minutes have passed...)

I just got back from one of the worst drives of my life. Maybe my worst moment since I walked into this same house, at roughy the same time, on January 30 of this year. The worst phone call since Tigger, who also died on a lonely Sunday night, on the Summer Solstice of 2011. The same day (six years later, though still the longest of the year) that you ran away and came home, Leon. The 115 days between that day and today seem painfully compressed. Too few days in between. Too soon to have just walked into the altar room to lay your frayed and ragged collar - with its standard-issue yellow SPCA chip tag next to your custom-engraved blue bone - on top of your picture frame, lit one of those pregnant Sri Sai Flora sticks and traced infinity over you as well. Too soon to have joined the rest of the dead. Four out of nine, not counting the two I've lost track of. My little rowboat is filling up fast.

So why am I not breaking down? Why wasn’t I bawling when I first got the call, at 8:24 pm, from the strange woman and her non-descript 438 area code number, asking me if Leon was my cat. Of course he's my cat. Why else would you be calling? I must have answered so nonchalantly, having fielded enough of these phone calls on your behalf to no longer make such a big deal out of them. (Remember when I had to come pick you up that one Friday night at that stranger's house, then carry you back to my car like lost luggage? Of course you don't.) 

She must have been taken aback as well, wondering how she was going to break the news that you were gone. Is that what she actually said? I think so. “Leon is gone.” I repeated the word gone and added a question mark at the end. What do you mean, gone? More questions. Are you his owner? Is Leon a big, beautiful grey cat? I asked her why she was asking. Of course he was my mine, big and beautiful - all those things. Although to be fair, I thought to myself, he's more cream than grey, a very uniquely striped specimen indeed, with deep blue bulging eyes that often scan their surroundings with blurry humming-bird speed. He has a meow that's too tiny for him. And when you grab him and bring him right close to your face, not only could you feel the massive weight of him (not that he was fat, maybe a little when he came from the SPCA, before we put him on Chillum's diet food) but you could actually feel the human-like sigh he let out - half elated, half accepting. More questions. Do you live close by? Is this some kind of a joke? Then the messenger started to get emotional. She repeated that Leon was gone. That Leon was dead. That she had his collar and that’s why we were talking on the phone. “What do you mean dead?” I demanded, my voice sounding thin and somehow detached, like it was suddenly too small for my throat. Like one of us had the wrong number. I can’t stand to be the one to have to tell you this. Tell me what? I asked her where she was. She asked me if I was far. The first fuck slipped out. Tell me what you mean by dead and gone? She told me she had found him in the street while she was walking her dog. That she lived in the neighbourhood. That she had pushed him over to the sidewalk because nobody else had. That she would wait for me to come by. When would I be coming by? Fuck. I exhaled loudly. I started pacing. Fuck. I mumbled something about leaving now. I told her I'd call her once I got there. I didn’t thank her for calling. Didn’t thank her for letting me know. Didn’t ask her for any more explanations. Not if he was still breathing. Not if he was wet. Or cold. Or stiff. Or crushed. Not even if she was a hundred per cent sure it was my Leon. Our Leon. Leone di Cairano. When I hung up the phone, she was still talking.

It bothered me that I wasn’t crying yet. It bothered me that my voice wasn’t even shaking as I shared the news with my brother, making it a little more real. All I could think about was grabbing a black garbage bag (Costco) and making sure my doors and windows were closed so none of my other cats could go out. I only thought about driving there, and whether there was any chance I might actually throw up on the way, or maybe when I’d finally see him. My head continued to swim in a lingering Sunday hangover. I thought about the strange and unsolicited warning a young author from Chicago had given me over email, telling me to stay safe this weekend, even though I had never given her the impression that my life was ever in any kind of danger. I put on my black Burton hoodie, even though it was still unseasonably muggy out, something the afternoon's near torrential rainfall had done little to alleviate. I thought about how soaked Leon would be, and whether or not that would be a good thing. I wondered if he’d be flat like a pancake. If his body would be twisted. Or if he’d just look like he was taking a long nap, the way he often did when I’d find him sprawled out on the pink futon, his paws and two large canines exposed, not a care in the world. I drove out. I noticed my left leg was shaking uncontrollably. No tears. But at least it was something. 

The streets were empty. The air coming through the vents was ice cold. It reminded me of the weather the day my marriage fell apart, strangled by the clammy hands of too many secrets. I didn’t play any music on the way. No Kendrick. No Radiohead. Nothing to set the mood. Just the sad silence of a Sunday evening drizzle against my windshield wipers. And my dull thoughts. The growl in my stomach. I visualized, bracing myself for the worst. I also entertained the minute possibility this could all be some kind of giant misunderstanding. I didn’t entertain that thought for very long. More than anything, I thought about what was going to become of one of my story’s main characters. The unexpected symbol of my salvation. My hope. My beacon of light through the darkness. Was he really gone? And if he was, what was I going to do with his body? His memory, I could cherish. His soul, I could immortalize. But what about his physical body? That’s what I thought about most of all. Where would I bury him? Would the hole be deep enough? Was there any chance we could cremate him in this rain? How long might it all take? 

I witnessed two near-accidents on the way. This is how cats die on the road. Except nobody gets out to check if the cat's okay once they feel that sickening thud. It’s almost always a hit and run. No-fault insurance. Injured cats are discovered, comforted and reported by fellow animal lovers. People who feel the pain of those whose numbers they dial, putting themselves in the terrible position of having to break the news to somebody that could have been them on any other day. I've been on both ends of the line. It sucks either way.

When I turned left onto 8th Avenue, I braced myself - like I do any time I see a garbage bag or strange object in the middle of the street. I stopped the car right in front of Cantors but didn’t see anything. Figured I might as well park at the Mothership. My brother got there at the exact same moment. He got out without saying much. We started to walk back toward Cantors. That’s when I started crying. There were very few people on this planet whose presence alone could make me sob - my brother was one of them. It was like muscle memory for me. I made sure to walk a little in front of him just to avoid breaking down completely. Still no sign of Leon. At least it wasn’t raining hard anymore. We didn’t say a word. Still nothing. I decided to call the lady. She answered the phone and asked if I was Leon, then realized what she was saying and asked us where we were. She seemed more distraught than I was. Maybe she was thinking about the tables being turned? Maybe she was quietly hugging her dog and counting her lucky stars, the way other people’s tragedy always seem to make you do. ‘Not me, life. Not today!’ She mentioned being closer to Denis Papin. Could I see her? Not yet, but I turned around and started walking back that way. 

I guess my brother hadn’t heard me tell him she was the opposite way, because he was still searching behind the cars in the parking lot, tenderly. My brother had texted me that morning, reporting that Leon wasn't around. But then the sly fucker had managed to train us not to worry about him. Was his bowl empty? Yup. Okay, all good then. Probably went out roaming again. He'll be back... 

Daddy was calling. I ignored his calls. Once. Twice. I answered the third time, slightly annoyed, dished out the news in ten seconds flat and quickly hung up. Just like I had done with my mom, who called me as I was I getting into my car, asking me what happened. Like I knew. We walked past the neighbours and saw a woman emerge from behind a large truck, possibly next to that little metal shop I had visited the first time Leon had gone missing. That first day of Summer. The woman was short and stout. Her poodle stood beside her. She reattached his leash and asked if we were the guys. I nodded, tearing up. Follow me, her nervous body seemed to say, as she pointed awkwardly to the other side of the street. We crossed over to the front of a building we had thought of buying not too long ago. She said something about how we must have loved him, given his fancy collar. But her voice stopped mattering when I finally spotted him. 

Leon was sprawled out on the sidewalk, soaking wet. His face was frozen in a hideous wince. Resting on his left side, nearly all his right teeth were bared and exposed. His eyes were open, but I could no longer make out the blue in them. His left paw seemed to hang at a weird angle under his head. Like he was having the worst kind of sleep, stuck in a perpetual nightmare. It confirmed that he had died a painful death. That this world was indeed heartless and cruel. That you test your own shitty luck as much as you make it. That much I could make out from the half lit resting patch of sidewalk he had occupied for God knows how long. Too long. My eyes went blurry, the way they are going blurry now. It became hard to focus. The refraction of the light through tears and scratched lenses was probably a blessing in disguise, shielding me from any more detail. Making it less real. The beautiful ivory fur that had covered his broad, Doberman's chest (a chest that never slimmed down, even when he did) was now a dull, street rat grey. He looked emaciated, the way cats do when you give them a bath. Except he didn’t look clean at all. His tail was all scraggly. “It’s not him, Rob. It's not him” my brother said matter-of-factly. He was right. But maybe he was also trying to reassure me so that I wouldn’t lose it, the way I had when I held Angel on the sterile metal table, while the vet gently plunged liquid death into her. That day, I had cried out as her eyes went glassy and her breath stopped. But there was no moment of release now. Tears pooled on my glasses and streamed down my nose. The lump in my throat just sat there. Nothing more. All I could think about was getting him into the garbage bag. I didn’t even notice the woman leave, although she did apologize again before doing so. I removed his collar. We both cupped his rigid body as gently as we could, my brother by his haunches, me by his head. There was no bend left in him. His beautiful coat was no more. We struggled to fit the mouth of the industrial-sized garbage bag around him. But we managed.

We walked back to the Mothership. The garbage was already out, and every last one of those bags looked hideous and suspect to me now. My brain cried for a quick solution. I looked up at the sky, shook my head and sighed. It felt abut right. My brother double-bagged him, then asked me what I wanted to do. I mentioned burying him, knowing I’d have time to justify the larger symbolism of it if I could just get through this moment. Right now? But he knew better than to ask twice. I picked up the bag. Leon (Leone di Cairano, as my grandmother had unknowingly baptized him during one particularly entertaining rendition of the great family story) had always weighed a lot in my arms. Maybe it was the thing I liked most about him, even more than his gentleness. All those times that I'd find him loitering back there in the yard, waiting patiently after another night out, I'd call him toward me. He’d locate my voice, give in and approach me with his wobbly strut and his tiny whimper - too tiny for his stature - and quietly allow me to pick him up and carry him inside, only really starting to protest as we got toward the front door. Once inside, he’d follow me up the stairs, wait for me to punch in the code and hop in as soon as the door had cleared. He'd still have to clear Chillum, of course. But he always managed. Within twenty minutes, he’d be back out - like Dino in the Flintstones. Too smart for his own good.

But he was somehow even heavier now. Dead weight. I held the bag and let the weight of him sink in. My brother opened the fence and I carried him into his old stomping ground, Leon nothing more than a stiff form in a gleaming black garbage bag, hoping nobody would be around for this. Max was there. I went straight for the shovel. Max followed me out and insisted he do it because I was close to him. I told him it was fine. That I was fine. That this was life. That I needed to do this. That I wanted to do this. I wanted nothing more than to do this, smoke a cigarette and go home. And write, of course. And watch as the snake continued to eat its own tail. 

We found a soft empty space under the vines. I plunged the shovel into the moist, loose earth and dug a hole in no time at all. I made sure it was big enough and deep enough to comfortably house him, without struggle. My brother insisted it was, then I dug a little more just to be sure. I was trying to open the bag. He insisted on placing the entire thing inside and then tearing it open. And there was Leon, again, filling up his final resting spot. The great Leone di Cairano, looking like one little rat only. Mowed down at three, well before his prime. I asked my brother to turn his body so his back was against the concrete wall. It didn’t seem right any other way. I wondered how long he’d take to disappear completely. I told him not to cover him just yet. I wanted to touch him one last time. I pet him and scratched under his chin in the dark, imaging him closing his eyes and flashing those canines in his genetically rehearsed response. I started to cry again and my brother left, taking the light with him. I didn't even say the word goodbye. I guess I had gotten my fill of those. I did not want to let this one linger. I patted down the earth around him. I smoked half a cigarette, thought about taking a walk back to the scene of the accident, then decided against it. 

Even now, I am weary of giving this death any more meaning. It only makes it more painful. But you are so much more than four out of nine, Leon. You are yet another beautiful link between two worlds. A gentle traveler I was lucky enough to cross on the road to infinity. 

In the cards

Our weekly game of Scopa has become the best way to pass the time.

When you and I go at it, nothing else matters. Not the pain in your side. Not the latest claim to your living inheritance. Not even the divorce and all the nasty words you heard but maybe don't remember. All your attention is on those old Napolitan cards I picked up in that perfect little Square in Rome. And all my attention turns to you. And every week I pray that you won't forget how to play. That you won't forget how valuable that sette bello is. I can sense how tightly you hold on to these few simple calculations. So I make you deal even if I mix the cards before you do. I love how you always cut the deck in half. How you count the cards to yourself regardless of the outcome. And I breathe a tiny sigh of relief every time the numbers add up.

And whenever Mommy makes a trip downstairs there's always a moment where you draw me close and whisper some obtuse Italian proverb in my ear. Something your mother told you when you were too young to even understand. Forcing it out before mine has a chance to come back into the kitchen. Not because you don't want her to hear. Just because you've been saving it for the right occasion.

I don't always get it. But I smile anyway. I smile with my tired eyes and you smile back with yours. Because you're still by far the wisest person in the room. 

all the pretty little blue lights

My mom had called me almost two weeks ago to tell me she had already started putting up the Christmas decorations. It was not like her to start so early.

Even tonight, as she hovered around the table cleaning up and preparing coffee and listening to my father and I talking the usual talk, I could tell she was eager to get to the tree. This morning we had all awoken to our first snowfall; a gentle blanket of white covering everything and sticking to nothing. It's not like her demand was out of season. Still. "I don't know why I'm so determined this year," she repeated. "Maybe it's a bad omen. Maybe something bad is going to happen."

The words just kind of hung in the air for a second. My father gave her the "I knew you were going to say that" glance (and then the line) and I just stared at my milky espresso and said nothing. I had heard her speaking with my Aunt over the phone. We were all quite capable of filling in the blanks.

So we went into the living room and got to work. My father disappeared downstairs. My grandmother sat on the couch and watched, perfectly content to stay out of the decision making process. Not that there is every any creative fireworks between the two of us. I credit my mom for my sense of aesthetic - her words, not mine. Time is no object when working on any thing of beauty. We worked on the tree for a solid two hours, tucking every last blue and white light bulb into those fake pine branches while Elvis sang "Love me tender" in the background. Every now and then I caught us both humming the same words and realized I can't remember ever singing a song with her - not wholeheartedly, anyhow. And every ten minutes or so my grandmother would look at us and smile and ask me when I was going to put up my tree. And I would tell her I usually waited until around mid December because Amy and I preferred a real tree and I wanted it to last until at least mid January.

And every now and then I would kill the lights to see how the tree was looking. And it was more and more beautiful every time. The way those white and blue lights reflected in every pane of the bay window - well, it made the street where I grew up seem even more magical. My mom kept saying how peaceful it all looked; and how happy it would make my grandmother to just sit there and stare at it, the way she often did with the window. If there would be no one passing by on a cold suburban night, at least she wouldn't be able to complain there was no life and no view.

And so there was no more talk of bad omens. At least not for one night.  

forever by your bedside

I don't think I was ever so relieved to get to the hospital to visit my grandmother.

I'll explain. I'm no fan of hospitals but I was just coming from a funeral home. I don't remember ever meeting Anthony. He was just 23-years-old. Died of a mysterious heart attack - not that the cause really matters. His mother was catatonic and inconsolable, denying the fact with a numbing repetition that made it impossible to focus on anything else. I watched her call out her father's name in a similar manner two years ago, the last time I saw this side of the family all together. This was a whole other world of hurt.

Then more bad news struck even closer to home. I found out my first cousin tried to commit suicide this weekend. Ingested too many pills with alcohol and then called the ambulance himself. My brain would not compute the reality - even if it had been quietly preparing for this very news for years.

So this is why I felt a strange sort of calm as I made my way through the familiar emergency room at the Jewish, straight to the elevator and up to the sixth floor. I even let myself get lost for a little bit - enough to find a decent coffee, anyhow.

When I finally did find my grandmother, she was just sitting next to her bed finishing off her dinner. Her hair was combed and golden and her face flush with life and colour. I knew it would be just me and her tonight and that kind of put my mind at ease. I was looking forward to just concentrating on her without getting distracted by background conversation - which is unfortunately easier to do with someone who has a tendency to ramble and repeat herself while storytelling.

I'm always relieved to know she still recognizes me and generally knows what's going on in my life. It makes me feel special even though that's probably stupid. I know even those details are getting hazy. (She asked me if it was still snowing outside, then gently brushed off the question) But then she kind of assured me as much when making reference to the old woman across the hall, who asked me to open her pudding cup and then couldn't even remember where her bed was or whether or not she was even in the right room.

"At least you still remember me," I joked in my broken Italian.
"Yes, I always remember you," she replied.

And then we got talking. We started with the funeral and she almost immediately wanted to change the subject. Then she told me how her mother never really recovered from losing her only son Angelo at 12 years old - the fact that she still had six daughters to raise offering little consolation. My grandmother told me the day her mother died, she stood by her bedside and heard her dead brother's name cross her lips as she reached for her light and slipped away for good.

Then she started telling me about my grandfather, who died before I was a teenager. I never heard her say much about him aside from pointing out he couldn't even make himself toast or boil an egg when push came to shove. Nothing like his brother, anyway. But as we were talking about functional and dysfunctional relationships she told me how the only times they really fought was when he would disappear for nights at a time playing cards. She somehow always managed to track him down (with God's help, of course) and finally got him to admit that cards were the one vice he could not control. In her persistent way, I think it was more important for my grandmother to be acknowledged for raising her four kids alone, for slaving over her sowing machine at all hours of the day and night and for never having to ask her husband for a cent. She was always a proud woman, though maybe too wise to believe she could change the man she was with.

She was repeating herself quite a bit but I was loving every minute of it. I kept thinking that I needed to get home to get this all down. Because this magical conversation - which was somehow everything I needed to be hearing right now - could not be lost or smudged to my poor memory.

And then she said something that blew my mind and nearly broke my heart.

She told me that even if I didn't think her words were important tonight, that I would wake up one day and realize they were. Then she took her right index finger to her right temple, her blue eyes wide and ablaze, and predicted that I would remember everything she said tonight because my brain could not afford to let it go. Maybe the pointless details, but not this. And she promised me I would even remember sitting on the hospital bed in this particular hospital room - the way she still remembered things her mother had told her with perfect clarity - when she was dead and gone.

And then she started to tear up, the way she always does. Releasing the unspoken emotion for the both of us. And she asked me for a glass of water and I gently massaged her arm and smiled.

And did my best to capture every last detail of that beautiful moment.

the cloud with no silver lining.

I've been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately. Ever since she came over for Thanksgiving and just kind of sat there on the edge of the couch, not quite that far from us but still watching from a distance behind her glasses. There's been a distance growing for some time now. I feel it's a confused sort of distance, like maybe she's no longer exactly sure what is going on with each of us at every moment and plays it safe by smiling and listening more than she speaks. I still catch her speaking to Amy in Italian, which is always a good sign. She's better one on one. And she always seems to know where I'm at in my life, even if she repeatedly asks me if I have two cats or just one. I understand why she might be confused but I'm not even sure she remembers that one of them died and was only later replaced. I always smile and answer the question, like nothing was. But maybe something is. Maybe the Alzheimer's is finally starting to catch up with her - and in more ways than just her forgetfulness. Maybe she's also starting to get a little paranoid. And maybe she's starting to feel like she's becoming a weight that few of us are truly willing to shoulder, my Mom excluded. And maybe she's partially right.

All I know is that I always visit every Sunday with the intention of trying my best to be as close to her as I can. But it's getting harder and harder to do. I'll rub her shoulders and then she'll tell me she's in the clouds and I'll believe her.

I understand. But we both live on very different clouds.

ahh. works every time

Tonight I was hanging out with my mother and my grandmother, searching the internet for people who have basically fallen off the face of the earth. People who used to call.

We searched the white pages. We ran maiden names past Google. I even checked the obituaries. (Talk about falling off the face of the Earth) At the end of the day, all the trails ran cold. Finally, my Mom just opened up that trusty little phone book of hers and scrolled down her own, neat handwriting. She found one of my Nonna's old Florida friends and put her on the phone. She answered. My grandmother lit up. No luck on the initial search, except for word Gloria may have moved to Mascouche. Still, it was enough to get her smiling. And out of the clouds.

a leap of faith

Another hospital visit. Another slow start/strong finish for my grandmother.

Tonight she kept telling me about how she's never one to ring for the nurse. She did today because she wasn't sure how to lift or lower the bed. (And even if she had been told in the last day or even the last hour, she wouldn't have remembered) When the nurse came, he basically showed her how to do it herself. Her lips pursed with a hint of indignation as she told me this. She was offended.

I just find it interesting how the nurses seem to forget that she's got mild Alzheimer's. So I showed her - even though I knew she'd forget. She must have repeated the same story five times after that. I tried my best to re-explain it every time.

And then I had this strange thought. I could literally come up with a different reaction every time she told the story. I could offer different explanations. I could be different people. I didn't, of course.

Instead, I took out the brush from her drawer by the bed and tried my best to puff up her hair. She laughed, Amy laughed too and everything seemed to get better from there. We showed her some old videos of our little nephew David dancing and then I got her and Amy to play cards. She ate some grapes and suddenly, her head wasn't so far far away.

And all was well - at least for that hour or so.

a certain kind of blue

no matter how many millions of tiny paper cuts Alzheimer's manages to inflict on my Nonna's beautiful brain, it has yet to extinguish the fire in her blue eyes. those blue eyes see what i can never see. she remembers events, dates and facial expressions with photocopy accuracy. of course, the lens doesn't work as well as it used to. i always get asked whether i have one or two cats - sometimes in the span of ten minutes. but the dementia hasn't compromised her ability to cut to the chase when need be. and when the tears start to well up in those beautiful blue eyes, you know there's some raw truth coming. now, every time i speak up and debate/argue some point at Sunday dinner (and it happens a lot) i could feel those blue eyes on me. she will never interrupt, but i always feel she is quietly scanning through the family tree to see which relative i most remind her of. i'd like to think she is impressed - even smiling - when she does. but i also get the feeling she's seen it all before. those blue eyes know how this all ends. they just don't want to spoil it for the rest of us.