Monday, 27 December 2004 | Complications

When people offer their condolences, I'm embarrassed when I cry, and embarrassed when I don't. Sometimes I wish unrestrained emotion didn't make me so uncomfortable.

I'm on I-95, riding in a loop around Washington, D.C., behind the heads of my parents, watching the road; it's almost all 18-wheelers, vans, and SUVs. I'm going home a day earlier than I'd planned, and they're taking me all the way into Brooklyn, instead of taking me to the train station in my grandmother's New Jersey town.

I've been driving my mom's VW Beetle for the past few days, only the second time I've driven all year. That's strange to me, but not as strange as the fact that I hadn't realized it had been that long until I got behind the wheel. My cat, Jane, looks something like a VW Beetle. She's so round, and likes to sit with her paws tucked under her body, her hind legs curving around like fenders, and her round, giant eyes forming the headlights.

I haven't forgotten how to drive, and the driving-related thoughts spring up naturally, as if I'd been doing it every day of 2004. Ease the gas so that the light turns green before you get there. Ready your foot over the pedal, in case that car pulls out in front of you. Don't hit the brakes on ice.

On Sunday morning I only had modest control of the car as it swerved over icy, country roads. It was fun when Jay was attempting 180s in his car on the way to breakfast (sweet tea and biscuits) and less fun when I was the one in control, when I was stuck in the median of a highway.

I was driving alone in a loop around Raleigh Sunday evening when I got the phone call, and mindlessly pulled over into a Waffle House parking lot to absorb the first of a series of facts and realizations. Jane is dead. She died alone, on the kitchen floor of a strange apartment, probably while having a seizure. I was miles away, perhaps stuck in a highway median, in North Carolina. She was discovered by her caretaker's roommate, who'd never seen her alive.

Just so you know, she was quiet and sweet, and trilled more than she meowed; sometimes she even meowed silently. When she jumped off the bed, her heavy body would make a funny thump, and she'd simultaneously let out a grunt, like the sound a "mama" doll might make if she were dropped to the floor. She was needy, always came when called, and often followed me from room to room. Sometimes she'd sniff my face while purring (her cat face large and curious), which never failed to make me laugh. She was clumsy, patient, and well mannered, and scared of heights, other cats, and plastic bags. In order to get her to play, you'd have to drag a string across her paw, and she might (might) reach for it, assuming she didn't have to move very far. Unbeknownst to her, she was complimented regularly on her unusually soft fur. Also unbeknownst to her, she had about a hundred nicknames.

It took me weeks to get her to use her scratcher, weeks of me unsuccessfully forcing her paws in the motions, weeks of me demonstrating with my own nails. The first time she started scratching on her own, my mouth dropped open in surprise.

Whenever I poured food in her bowl, I'd have to make loud fake coughing sounds to cover the noise, so that she wouldn't come running. She'd often eat until she puked, she liked it so much.

Once I saw her open her mouth for what started out to be a (threatening) hiss, but ended in an unthreatening yawn. (Jane is the least scary creature I can fathom.) Due to her slight overbite, you could see her fangs even when her mouth was closed. She looked something like a cartoon.

I don't know what killed her exactly. When asked, I say "complications with diabetes," either straight-faced or not. That's about as exact as "dying of old age," which has never made much sense to me.

In order not to constantly think about it, I just need to avoid things that remind me of her: things that are round or gray, syringes, animals, plastic bags, my bed, food, things with eyes, and my entire apartment. Should be easy, right? There is fur on my keyboard.