Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

Picture yourself in a boat on a river
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies …

I don’t really want to turn this blog into a series of cat memorials … I mean, I’m actually allergic to cats … but in what has been a summer of rather profound loss, particularly for my wife, the death of another cat has impacted our lives. Lucy, one of the many cats of Monica’s best friend and maid of honor from our wedding, Sherry, died on Sunday when she was hit by a car in front of Sherry’s house. I certainly new Lucy much better than Mocha, though Monica new Lucy much better than I did and, since finding out about my allergy to cats a few years ago, I hadn’t pet Lucy. Still, she had been Sherry’s cat for a long time, dating back to when I first met Monica in the late 1990s. We knew Lucy was getting old and might not have a lot of time left, but wished for her to have passed away in her sleep or in the garden or the yard or the bushes. Certainly, just about anything would have been better than being hit by a car in front of her house … just like Mocha almost a month ago to the day. I know I won’t feel the depth of missing Lucy that Monica, Sherry, or Sherry’s twin daughters will, since I didn’t know Lucy as well, but I certainly am thinking of her and, as I do, I picture Lucy on that boat on the river, cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over her head. I look for the cat with the sun in her eyes, but she’s gone …