amory

A dear young friend is bidding adieu to a massively beloved member of her family this morning.  My thoughts & hearts are with them.  Milhouse has four legs & fur, but that pup is as much a part of the family as my friend & her husband.  Her boys have never known life without their furry brother.  

Their preparation for the parting - looking at pictures, showering him with all the love they've felt & will feel, giving him a saucer of beer - has me remembering Amory, the best cat in the universe.  

We only had Amory for a year, but it was a year touched with magic & a deeper sense of all that animals bring to our lives.

Amory was our second cat.  Chessie took a LONG time to adjust to life with us.  We expected the same from Amory. 

Neither John nor I had any intention of getting another cat, but the same friend who connected us with Chessie called up one bitterly cold January evening to say that they had a rescue cat from Doylestown in need of a home & could we take him, if only until they could find a permanent place.  I'd just read The Christmas Cat, so was in just the right spot for saying yes, yes to everything.  Yes to welcoming this unknown, from her description half-starved cat into our home, family, hearts.  

When Leslie walked in the front door with this little, scrawny black cat, I thought, "This is going to take a while.  He's had such a hard go, he's going to be even more distrustful than Chessie."  HA!

John & I were surprised when Leslie put him down on the living room floor.  We'd prepared the front room as his "introduction" chamber.  No need.  That cat took one look around, looked up at us, and seemed to say, "How lovely - the Plaza!"  and made himself immediately at home.

Amory was a black short-hair of undetermined age, but everyone in the know agreed he was an older cat.  He was small & thin as a rail & the most social creature I ever encountered, man or beast.  With Chessie, he showed restraint & diplomacy, letting her make the overtures to something more than abject worship of her self.  The two of them would become the best of friends, happiest by the other's side.  

When guests arrived - back then, we had a lot of them & a lot of parties, which Amory loved - he'd greet them  Peter, with whom he had an especially close relationship, said that he felt Amory always greeted him with, "So happy to see you!  Can I get you something to eat, maybe a tweek of catnip?"   It brings happy tears to my eyes remembering Sunday nights, when Peter would stop by late in the evening to read the Inquirer - my brother on the couch near the lamp, reading the paper with a cat, all contentment, on either side.  When Peter stopped coming, Amory seemed quite heartbroken, like he'd lost a close friend & didn't know why.

Amory & Chessie shared the rare accomplishment of being published authors!  Not just published, but part of an anthology that gets five stars from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble!!  My heart is tender in telling you that their letter to Smarty Jones congratulating the local horse on winning the first two legs of the Triple Crown was NOT with the rest of the featured letters from humans & animals.  There was no description of their "owners" or describing them as "pets."  Instead, the letter is tucked in the very back, looking just as they wrote it, with the two of them given full credit, as deserved.  How many cats do YOU know who can add a publishing credit to their cv?

It broke our hearts to say our adieus so soon.  We took tender care with our boy's small, sweet body.  John dug a hole at Amory's favorite spot, under the rhododendron.  I layered it with fern, the rose petals.  With Chessie close by, we lowered him down, then laid another layer of rose petals over him, completely covering every bit of our sweet boy.

Writing this, tears are streaming down my face.  To this day - ten years later - either John or I will say to the other, "I miss Amory."  He is forever in our hearts, as Milhouse will forever be in the hearts of the Browns.