Let Me Help You With That

FOG

by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

It comes as sort of an epiphany, at four thirty am, when my mind is open to epiphanies. My cat is using me.

Her name is Fog because she is grey and she has little cat's feet just like the poem, and she does spend a lot of time just looking at me and figuring out how to make me understand what she needs. She believes I am trainable. And sometimes, when she can't figure out how to convey her wishes and needs to me, she just moves on with no hard feelings and kills something to slack her appetites. Mice are so convenient, really: little packages of hydration, protein and pre-digested vegetable matter that reproduce themselves in climate controlled corners of the attic and basement and pantry. The fact that cats eat mice we view as a benefit to us. However, I can tell you that your cat will never hunt your house mice to extinction. They will always leave a few for that rainy day when you run out of cat food and try to substitute something lame like scrambled eggs. That MIGHT work for your dog.

Fog will occasionally make the grand gesture. Once she brought a newly killed mouse into the living room and plopped it down in front of the old, brain damaged Jack russell. He was so startled that poop shot out his butt like a cannon. In disgust she smacked him on the head, picked up her mouse and left the room with her tail straight up in an exclamation point.

Fog owns places in my house I will never visit. My family laughs at my efforts to keep her from slipping out the kitchen door to the yard because they say they routinely see her on the lawn in the moonlight. I have seen her footprints in the dust on my car. I think the sounds I have attributed to the "ghost in the attic" are actually her using the old coats and Christmas wrap. She gets up there by jumping first on to the fridge in the kitchen. From there, she leaps at a 45 degree angle up to where the cabinets meet the ceiling. There is a hole up there through to the unfinished room above. She might actually climb up the inside of the wall to get into the attic. I am afraid that some day she might get stuck. I am afraid of that because I am human, not a cat, with a cat's confidence.

Fog greets every guest to the house, after the dogs are finished their hysterical STRANGER DANGER WHAT FUN slobbering, barking and jumping. She assesses visitors for usefulness by presenting her rear for scratching. She is happiest with a sort of unconscious stroking. If you get enthusiastic and try to place her on your lap, she assertively wiggles out of your grasp and calmly moves beyond reach, sending an unmistakeable message of NO THANKS - a move all young women should learn. No hard feelings, just NO.

On cool nights when I have the fire going, she will sit next to me on the sofa - once the dogs are settled. Her gorgeous, long, white whiskers enchant me as do the perfectly symmetrical swirls of dark among light of her fur. And then she purrs and all is right with the world.

The other day, I was doing chores and she came to fetch me - very declarative meows and short running bursts toward the kitchen. I put down my dust cloth (OH SERIOUSLY - do you think I was dusting? I was staring into space in the living room with the TV on, holding the dust cloth, in a Law and Order Stupor.) Anyhow, I put the dust cloth down, followed her into the kitchen while she frantically jumped on to the table where I keep her food and water out of reach of rude, opportunistic dogs. She stood next to her water and HOWLED - A gut wrenching, operatic mournful sound that caused people in three counties to stop what they were doing and glance toward heaven and cross themselves.

There was a moth, flapping in the water. I flicked it out, she elegantly stretched, dipped down to the bowl and sniffed. Turned her back to it and stared at the kitchen sink. I picked up the bowl, carried it to the sink, emptied it out, swished it with dishwashing liquid, filled it with fresh water, placed it back on the table. Stretching again, she sniffed the water again, found it satisfactory and began to lap with her perfect pink tongue.

Not til 18 hours later, in the middle of another sleepless night, did the full impact of this hit me. If my cat can work me like this, how well trained am I? My CAT has my number. My cat, simply by observing me on a daily basis, knows she can work me. Not only work me, but get me to perform. Tricks. Had I ignored her, she could have gotten that moth out, or she would have sipped that moth water, all the same. Perhaps she would have eaten the moth. Maybe it could have become Moth Broth. I've seen her catch them while they were beating themselves to death against the window, and then crunch them like potato chips.

And because it is an epiphany, and the middle of the night and my mind is free to wander, and because it is close to the third anniversary of his death, I am thinking about the time Charles told me he knew he would marry me. I had asked - and he said, "it was because of the movies, that time." "That time?" He says, "yes, that time at the movies. I think it was our third date or so. There was something gross happening on screen, I turned to you and pretended to gag. And you put your hands up toward me, cupping them."

I don't remember this, and it stuns me. "Like I was going to catch your..."

He says, "Yes. At that moment, I knew you would be my wife."

This was not the romantic declaration I was looking for. But he goes on, "I figured that a girl who would do that, well, would be a woman that I could count on."

So. I think about how angry I have been, for so long. I was a woman he could count on, many many many times, and a lot of the times I resented being counted on. Sometimes I was tired and sometimes I did not want to be the one cleaning up the mess. Sometimes I felt my good nature was used and abused. And then, he died and I was angry. SO angry. He died alone in that truck, and I remember thinking, that bastard. He was not sick, I could not hold his head. He was not in pain, and I could not make it better by fetching something or offering a glass of water. I did not get to pound his chest or press my lips to his to force air down his throat. I did not call the ambulance. Instead, I sit and listen, numb on my sofa, to two cops tell me the story of how he was found. When I ask, they say, the body was identified by the customer who found him. No need to go to the morgue. They hand me a slip of paper with a phone number on it, but tell me I really don't have to call. I will get a report when the coroner is through. They tell me that I don't need to do anything. My job as wife is over.

The Cremains Tour

Charles died.  There is no reason, no why, no how that can adequately explain it.  He is gone.  I will spend years trying to figure out the huge unreasonable-ness of the truth of the situation. Daily things that need dealing with keep cropping up and well, need dealing with.  Like what to do with his ashes.  Something appropriate, meaningful and respectful.  Something that he would have liked. I don't even know how the ashes arrived at my house after the funeral.  I suspect that my daughter in law took care of it, like so many other things she took care of at the time.  She just moved from thing to thing, fixing and arranging, dealing and taking care. 

But what did Charles love? What would he have liked? Present Charles loved his family and his home.  And the Philadelphia Folk Festival.  Past Charles loved a time when he was young, single and free, living in Florida and visiting Key West every weekend.  After a beer or two he would often speak of his good times there, how pretty it was, the color of the water.  I am sure there are things that happened there that he remembered fondly but never would have shared with me.  

So, I came up with a plan.  Some of the ashes would be mixed with the mortar of the foundation for the addition to the house that my kids were building and would live in.  We would mix them in as a family unit, just me and my son, my daughter in law, my grandsons.  Some would go with Ed, faithful friend and companion, to the Folk Festival.  The rest would go down to Key West with me.  I would ask Carol to go with me.  Perfect. 

I thought it would be no particular big deal to open the container, take out some ashes, find the appropriate containers and portion them off. 

However:  Carrying the container to the kitchen counter, my back began to spasm. I ignored that, and cut the seal.  The ashes were packed in a plastic bag tucked sideways into the container, and I decided if I took the whole bag out I might never get it back in, or it would spill or something.  So, I cut a small hole in the top of the bag. Then I had to decide what to use to scoop them out.  I chose a silver spoon.  THEN I had to figure out what to do with the spoon - I mean, do you just rinse it off?  All this time, the back is going like an accordian.  Then, I had to figure out how much - a cup?  cup and a half?  Then I realized I was sobbing.  I don't know whether having someone to do this with you would help.  It just sucked but it was the right thing to do.

I took out about a cup of Chuck and put it in a tupperware container. I dropped in some dried yellow roses. I wrapped the tupperware container in his favorite hawaiian shirt and stuffed everything into a USPS priority box.  My husband was a postal carrier for thirty five years, and I ended up mailing them from the post office where he worked.  As I stood in line, feeling bereft, sad, I noticed an old woman standing at the stamp machine.  My mother!  We just coincidently ended up at the post office the same time, so she waited in line with me.  

Three days later I am in Key West.

Carol - my best travel buddy and a long time friend of C's - and I wake up late our second morning and have tea in the bed and breakfast kitchen.  Afterward, we stop at the front table to see if the 'package' has arrived.  It has not.

The concierge inquires what was in it.  I said, My husband.  Well, not all of him.  (my voice sort of trails off) Thank God for Carol.  She saved the day by saying Ashes, so she does not think I am some sort of serial murderer shipping body parts around the country.

She nods solemnly and says, Are you going out on the boat?

I said, I had no real plans - I was sort of waiting to see what would develop.  

She said, Oh the guys on this boat are wonderful, do this all the time, they make sure everything goes okay.  Shall I make reservations?

I said, that would be great, but the ashes are not here.  

She said, I will make your reservations for tomorrow night and you know what, I bet they will arrive this afternoon.

We leave her to make the arrangements for our trip on a beautiful yacht called The Danger for sunset the next day. 

We went for a walk down to the docks and did some shopping. All day I had fantasies of the package never arriving, that the address somehow was wrong and that upon returning home, Charles and his shirt and the roses would be sitting on my porch waiting for me. Carol and I both saw C everywhere - Key West is full of middle aged balding handsome sunburnt men wearing baseball caps, t-shirts, hawaiian shirts and jean shorts and hirachi sandals.  We took a sight-seeing trolley and I was ambushed by the grief terrorists when we parked in front of Sloppy Joes - a bar that C often spoke of.  Thank God for my big sunglasses.

Late afternoon, shopped out and slightly sunburnt despite the 50 sunscreen, we trudged back to the B and B, and the first thing we saw was the box that holds C, on the bureau in our room.  

Early the next evening, I put Charles in my pocket book and Carol and I went down to the dock and bought our tickets for the boat.  Carol and I talked about just how I was going to do this.  I said I was just waiting to see what would develop, and I didn't know whether the woman who had made our reservations had told the boat company what I was planning.  When we got the tickets at the kiosk, we realized that the woman there had no idea.  Neither did the WEDDING PARTY getting on the boat or the mostly drunk already couples.  I decided I didn't want a big public thing, a lot of attention, and I certainly didn't want to ruin all these festive people's good times.  

Carol suggested that since nobody seemed to know what we were doing there, we might as well just wait for our opportunity and put the cremains over the side, quietly.  I said that worked for me, and I also decided that if an opportunity did not happen, I would take them down to the end of the pier after the trip.  It was so beautiful there on the water at the dock all of this seemed okay.  It was a spot that I recall Charles had talked about, that is was a tradition to watch the sunset there.  

So Carol and I and the cremains get on the boat and are sitting down waiting to set sail.  There are two boats going out, and each has a crew and we are next to each other in the marina.  People are milling around and the crew is giving us the "here are your life jackets' talk.  Suddenly there is a crash on the other boat and the captain of it is down on the deck, writhing in pain.  Everyone on both boats is watching to see what is going on.  He apparently fell and broke his ankle.  There is much scurrying around with ice and such.  Cellphones are pulled out and ambulances called.  Suddenly I realize NO ONE was watching me, they are all facing the other way.

So, I pop Charles out of my purse, unscrew the top of the plastic container and woosh!  Over the side he goes, with the dried yellow roses from my wedding bouquet.  The ashes sink immediately and the roses swirled around, the petals breaking apart and drifting in all different directions.  

It was okay.  Carol smiled and hugged me.  We leaned over the side and waved good bye.  I choked up.  I choked up a little through the whole cruise, but nobody knew, it was totally private and I owned the moment. Carol and I watched the wedding party toast.  We watched some of the drunker passengers try to hit on the crew.  We had bad wine out of paper cups and ate dip on celery sticks.  We didn't talk much.  Then we watched the sun go down on the horizon from this beautiful sail boat, and on the way back in, dophins swam back and forth in front of us. They jumped out of the water and smacked their tails just like Seaworld.   

It was okay.