An Ode to Pickle

My friend Shera dropped me a line this morning. Her cat Pickle passed away yesterday. I didn't know Pickle, but I do know Shera. As with all of the greatest relationships between animal and human, one tends to take on the traits of the other. So I can wax philosophically about Shera, and thusly reflect Pickle.

Shera and I are wholly different people. Where Shera has the air of a warm summer breeze, I am more of the hurricane, the closer you get, the more you risk being blown away. She looks at the world through doe like gentle eyes. She doesn't get caught in the trappings of judgement and gossip, her only true fault is perhaps, she loves everything too much. You could wake up on a crisp fall morning and stand at the end of the bed and watch her sleep for hours getting lost in the peace and content that defines her. She would not be out of place in the Garden of Eden, she's the type of person the animals would follow like the long train of a silk dress as she brought light to the flowers and trees. I am far more jaded, weathered, but she does give me the balance I talked of yesterday. That's what good friends do.

So with my best wishes, I will leave her with this.

And God asked the feline spirit
Are you ready to come home?
Oh, yes, quite so, replied the precious soul
And, as a cat, I am most able
To decide anything for myself

Are you coming then? asked God
Soon, replied the whiskered angel
But I must come slowly.
For my human friends are troubled.
For you see, they need me, quite certainly.

But don't they understand? asked God
That you'll never leave them?
That your souls are intertwined for all eternity?
That nothing is created or destroyed?
It just is...forever and ever and ever.

Eventually they will understand,
Replied the glorious cat.
For I will whisper into their hearts
That I am always with them
I just am...forever and ever and ever.