Farewell to Norvis

Today started out pretty normal. I slept in for a bit, and eventually Tally came in and hopped on top of me to get me up. I wandered around the apartment in a sleepy daze. I made one of my bagel sandwiches for breakfast. The only thing on the slate for the whole weekend was a bit of WoW in the evening with some friends.

‘Becca calls me to ask if I’d like to get out of the house for a bit. I’ve been down a little lately and I think she’s noticed, so is trying to cheer me up. I have some bank stuff to do and she was going to get some mail off so we decide to make a short afternoon of it and go walking.

At our first stop, Outdoor World, there’s all these great sales on clothes. I guess the Summer push for clothes is over, so they’ve slashed the prices on all that stuff in anticipation of the Fall and Winter fashions coming in. The clothes aren’t the best, but they’re certainly cheap enough to warrant looking at. As I’m shopping, ‘Becca’s sweating like a farm animal. (She’s wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and her black boots.) She heads home to change into some shorts, and I continue to riffle through stuff to find my rare size.

She comes back about 10 minutes later. Her face is flushed, and I can tell right away that something’s wrong. I ask her what’s wrong and she says, “I think Norvis just died.” I tell her, “Okay, let’s go.” I hand the stuff I’ve picked out to a clerk and tell them that I’ll have to come back for it later. They look at me a little funny, but whatever.

Norvis is one of the two cats ‘Becca inherited from her sister Crystal when Crystal moved to Southern California. ‘Becca took them in, rather than see them go to a shelter or be broken up to different adoptive families. He and his brother, Charlie, have been in a loving, safe home for the last couple of months. Some littermates can’t stand their siblings, but not these two. They would play together all the time, running and jumping, wrestling together, and grooming each other.

We get back to her place, and there he was. At first, he looked like a normal cat. He was lying on his side, he was soft and furry, but he was not purring, not getting up, not breathing. His mouth did not close and his eyes didn’t blink. He was still warm.

I helped her get him to a vet where they confirmed that he was dead. I hugged her and held her hand, and told her that she’d given him a great home. ‘Becca wanted to know what had happened so the Dr. said she’d try to find out.

I took ‘Becca out to dinner, and in the middle, the Dr. calls. It turned out that Norvis had heart disease. Half of his heart was almost twice the size that it was supposed to be and bruised, so the doc figured that a blood clot or something like that got him.

She’s still really upset, so we go and see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We have a pretty good time laughing at the movie and the strangeness that it encapsulated.

When we got back to her place, poor Charlie seemed a little nervous. This is the first real time that he’s been without his brother, except for a few days were he was sick. We’re thinking that we should have a play date with Charlie and Tally. She’s also going to try and be around her apartment a little bit more often for the next couple of weeks. I stay with her until David comes to tag in for the night watch.

Now I’m back in my apartment. I’m petting my cat, and listening to music that was written and performed by people who are now dead.

And those typical, trite, boring thoughts come to mind.

How much time do any of us have? We could die at any moment, there doesn’t have to be any warning, you’re cholesterol could be just fine. So what does it all mean? What’s the point of any of it? I think of how depressed I’ve been lately.

I think about all the people in this town whom I call my friends but who don’t want to hang out with me. I call them, I try to schedule stuff with them, but nothing ever comes of it. That’s really been hurting lately.

I think about how I’m the type of person who will drop everything to help a friend in trouble. I think about what a suck of a day this was. How ‘Becca was brave, crushed, but trying to be strong and move through things all at the same time. I think of how I was there for her, just to help, just to do anything that she needed done. I think about how much I love her as a friend and as a person.

And it hits me, I call these other people my friends, but I’m not *their* friend. If a friend is someone who I can call up and arrange to hang out with for an hour or two, then I only have four friends in this town, and three of them are on trips right now.

It makes me think of how I must really rub a lot of people the wrong way. I’ve tried my whole life to be a nice guy, to be someone honorable, helpful and kind. However, either my selection of friends is terrible, or I’m not nearly as good as I think I am. It turns out that I creep a lot of people out or just say the weirdest things. (I’m reminded of how some of the best villains don’t actually think of themselves as evil.) I can be very sarcastic and I tend to laugh at misfortune, both mine and others. However, today reminded me that I can be a pretty good friend when the chips are down.

Norvis passing has me thinking that I need to get back to doing the things that I need to do. I need to make choices I’m comfortable with. I need to not have regrets for my past or opportunities missed. I need to try and do things with the time I’m given, not worry about the time to come or the time wasted. I need to keep trying to be the person that I would like to be.