Dmitri

It has been six months today since my best friend left me. As I am speaking of a cat, the words may sound like hyperbole, or the ranting of a recluse without human interaction. But I assure you I have many human friends. It’s just that, while many of them are good friends, none could ever be the simple, loyal, consistent companion that Dmitri was to me.

He came to us as a kitten following a rare visit my daughter had with her mother, unannounced, as she returned home. I hadn’t anticipated having another cat, and he proved to be a challenging little kitten.

I honestly wasn’t all that fond of him then, yet it was not that Dmitri grew on me, but rather I grew up with him. He was the singular consistency in my post-college life, and had been with me for every major adult milestone, good and bad. As I matured and mellowed, he did the same, and I think we came to appreciate and admire one another. Looking at him, talking to him, it was at times a cathartic reminder of all I had been, of where I had come from.

Friends, girlfriends, pets, cars, addresses, jobs, even my daughter all came and went, but Dmitri was always there. When I got home from work, he was lounging in the driveway, or on the steps, or in the shrubberies, greeting me with a reassuring meow, and his life-of-Riley demeanor perpetually instantly lifted all the days’ problems from my shoulders. Whatever troubles befell me, Dmitri could jump into my lap and offer more solace than any friends’ sage advice.

Dmitri’s final vet visit was an event unimaginably difficult for me, the most difficult decision I have ever made, much more so than I had anticipated. Racked with grief and remorse, and second-guessing, I cried for months, I am not ashamed to say. It hit hardest when I returned home. He was not there in the driveway to meet me, and I knew he never would be again.

Since his passing I was left with one especially spoiled kitty, but we recently adopted a new kitten. I told myself that I would be ready in April, and my wife was sweet enough to find one for me, and she has been especially delightful. I wanted to honor him not by forever mourning, but by maybe giving another kitty a good home, and hoping perhaps part of his spirit finds its way back here through her.

I want to thank Dmitri, thank him for being my best friend. I can’t say it to him now, so I’ll say it to the universe, and hope he hears. Thank you, Friend.

For what it's worth...

Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve another chance, or at least that He might feel as such. I started so young and without any appreciation for what I had been given. In fact I cursed my maker for my lot, though in reality I had but myself to blame.

Others had played the game and seemingly came away much luckier than had I. Me, I of course was the one that suffered the consequences. It's not as though I didn't know them going in. But of course I was the one. I always saw the cup not as half full, or even half empty but as spilt over and shattered on the floor.

Naturally it took years for me to realize what fortune I had been given. Even now I am still learning. And of course I could not appreciate, and took for granted, even after I finally accepted my situation.

But I did accept it. I took responsibility, and 21 years later, I believe I did a damn good job making up for my initial misgivings, judgment, malediction and blaspheming. At some point, at least in my own being, I took on the mantra that it is not the mistakes that you make, but what you make of your mistakes. And there is one that stands as a testament that I lived up to that, and that I made good on my mistake.

And maybe I made good enough to deserve another chance. To do it right from the start, to do it under better circumstances and with help from someone better suited to do it with me. She certainly deserves that chance, a chance she has only been denied because of her choosing me.

In the end, there is but one to cast determination, and nothing I can do further will give me, or the one I love, the opportunity. I ask Him to forgive me, to consider my worth, and, if not for me, for her, grant us a chance.

Amen

Brother Thrash's Three Lessons of Life

A very wise man once gave a co-worker of mine some sage advice.

This gentleman was a homeless fellow that looked like one of the Bushwhackers of World Wrestling Federation fame: Shaved head, bushy beard, bulbous gut, sunburned from head to toe. He pushed around a shopping cart holding all his worldly belongings, as well as a great, big rock in the cart bottom.

He used to come into Mountain Mike’s Pizza, and occasionally order garlic cheese bread, hollering at the cook, “put a little extra cheese on that; could you do that for a brother?” Other times he just opened up the Parmesan shakers, dumped it out, and ate.

He went, alternately, by the names Stanley Irvin and Brother Thrash.

One day, he came up to one of the busboys, a lad by the name of Jason Carroll, still in high school or just recently graduated at the time, and gave to him words of wisdom that, upon hearing, I made my mantra. He put his arm around Jason and said, “Son, let me give ya Brother Thrash’s Three Lessons of Life: Git yer education, stay off the drugs, and stick with the women,” the last part being said slower, and with emphasis.

No person has ever given a more profound and truthful discourse. And to think, he gave it out for free.

The wife and her blog

As most of you that have been avidly following my blog know, way back when, in May, when I first started this, I was doing so to demonstrate to my wife the simplicity of creating and maintaining a blog.

It was also to show that, owing to the ease with which anyone could and would and did blog, blogs were not particularly in demand. Certainly there were bloggers that attained followings, but, much as there are hundreds if not thousands of bar bands and garage rockers for every signed artist,

Greg's Initial Auburn Blog

This is just a sample blog to prove to my wife that Blogging is simple, but not likely profitable, and that it is unlikely to produce many fans or readers.