The anniversary of a death

is something I am acutely aware of this morning. At almost this exact moment this time last year I was pedalling over to see Middle Cat and give her the news we had been expecting. I had already phoned Brother Cat and, because we knew she would not answer the phone, left a message for the Black Cat. I had said "goodbye" to the Senior Cat the day before. He had told me to go home. He said he was tired. I knew all that but it did not help at all.

I could barely see the road because I had to keep blinking. It was very quiet, too early for the heavy traffic to have started. I saw one person I knew out walking his dog. He had lost his wife some weeks beforehand. D... stopped me and asked if I was all right. I didn't need to tell him what had happened and I knew he meant was I all right to get where I was going without some help. If I had said no he would have walked with me the rest of the way. D... is that sort of person.

I think I somehow managed to shake my head but nod at the same time and I let out a sort of strangled "thank you". Then I pedalled on. I was over the railway line. The pedestrian lights on the main road turned almost immediately in my favour.  I didn't know whether to be grateful I did not need to wait or resent it because it would get me there sooner. Then it was pedal up the road which veers left. Middle Cat lives towards the top of that road. I was taking deep breaths, trying to stay calm. 

I have a key to Middle Cat's house - as she has one to this house. I was going to let myself in and wait if they were not up but the back door was not locked. I let myself in. Silence. I went up to the bedroom thinking my BIL had gone to work early. No, they were both in bed. It was a curious thing but they had not locked the back door that night, something they never leave unlocked at night.

What followed is a blur. It always will be. I know I managed to say what I needed to say but I cannot remember the rest clearly. I do know a little later I heard my BIL phoning his boss and saying he would be late into work - and his boss telling him not to worry if he did not get there at all. 

We were immensely fortunate we had planned for this day. The Senior Cat was extraordinarily practical about it all. Months before he had sat there one afternoon and told me what he wanted as a funeral service. It was typical he should have thought of all this. "It won't be for me," he told me, "It's for other people. I don't want them sitting there staring at my coffin." We had his ashes instead. We had it in the church he had attended for forty-one years. There have been several priests in that time. The current one was a regular visitor and knew full well that the Senior Cat's beliefs were heavily influenced by his paternal grandmother's views about "practical Christianity" rather than the ritual. They spent most of the time talking about woodwork, a hobby the Senior Cat had encouraged him to take up, saying often, "It's a very suitable hobby for a priest."

I phoned D.... and told him. It would have been his regular visiting day. "Do you want me to come now?" was his immediate offer. I told him no because there were other people expecting him and he knew we already had plans. I had written the eulogy and then passed it on to Brother Cat to do work on. It was the hardest thing I have ever written, far harder than the one for our mother. We were not close to her in the same way. She never discussed those things. This was so different. How do you tell others about the essence of the man who helped to bring you into the world, whose genuinely unconditional love and support had always been there? It never wavered. 

His funeral had to encompass more than one faith and many people.  We had to delay it for some days. Brother Cat had to come from another state, the Black Cat from yet another. Other people had to be accommodated. Some had already been asked to participate and others asked to be included. We had Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other faiths and lack of faiths in the church. I know what happened that day too but I remember very little of it. 

Perhaps it is a way of my memory protecting me. Today I am conscious, very conscious, that the Senior Cat has not been part of my life for a year - and yet is still part of it every day. I miss him but I try to tell myself he would not want to be here in that fragile state. We were just so fortunate to have him at all.