In Memoriam

Lucius Stickann
1994-2007

I loved my friend
He went away from me.
The story ends, soft as it began,
I loved my friend.

Langston Hughes

Split Focus

I'm in New York City for two days.

It's a beautiful, warm sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky and the city is glorious. I had meetings at City Opera for a piece I'm staging in the fall and I'm having dinner tonight with a friend who I get to see so seldom that it almost seems criminal. I should be singing down the street, skipping to the rhythm of the traffic, throwing my hat up to the tops of the building.

This city turns me on like no other.

I am, however, under a pall of sadness and perhaps fear for my kitty, Lucius, my best friend for twelve years. In the two weeks that my husband was in Cooperstown breathing new life into me and us, his health declinded rapidly and as John arrives in San Diego this afternoon, we may be making decisions that mean the end of an incredible relationship of mutual love, laughter and comfort.

It kills me that I can't be there. It also kills me that, even being in the most distracting city in the world, I am no closer to shutting my mind from the grief-house in San Diego than I was yesterday in my little room in Richfield Springs.

It's the waiting that's unbearable.

Cats Have it Easy. . .

. . .except for maybe Lucius, my aging white cat. He has a rogue claw (only one) that grows in a rapid circle and digs itself into the pad of his front paw. After five months of being away, it had stubbornly implanted itself in his little pad and I took him to the vet this morning to have it extracted.

He's doing fine but after spending any time with Lucius one gets the idea that he lives in a low-grade state of misery at all times. He's a little bit tired, a little bit gaseous, a little bit ornery and he can't stand our other cats, which makes him skittish and pissy whenever they're in the same room.

This isn't the same cat I knew a few years ago. His cardiomyopathy has changed him and I think the stress of my life over the past few years has wreaked a little havoc as well.

I know it's wreaked havoc on me.

Monty is the cat in the picture. He's our most well adjusted. He loves anyone who comes around him, sleeps all day, purrs uncontrollably when pet. Somedays I wake up and get ready for my day, look over at him and wish I were him. He's not very bright but, as John says, "how smart does he really need to be?"

He may be the only one in the house without baggage.