All Around Pennsauken

By Judith Kristen, AAP Columnist

I’m sitting in my office, dead silence in this part of my apartment, except for the tapping of the keys on my computer. My thoughts are all over the place, but thanks to editing and the backspace tab, I hope to eventually make this month’s column worth the reading for you.

For the first time in my entire life, I now come home each day to an emptiness that I’m not so sure I’ll ever get used to.

As you know, just last year, I lost my beloved hound dog Sophie to cancer. When I came home from seeing Sophie off to “The Rainbow Bridge,” I did my best to take stock of the situation, but… there really is none.

What I did do was to take my darling cat, Lucky, into my arms, and I hugged him; as always, he snuggled his face next to mine, and in our own way we mourned the loss of our dog. I say “our” dog, because from day one, Lucky and Sophie seemed like old friends. They absolutely adored each other. They slept together, played together, and Sophie would even move aside to give Lucky a drink from her water bowl, should the darling kitty prefer hers over his own.

Lucky was my late son Jon’s cat, and so held an even more than usual special place in my heart.

Over the last few months, Lucky’s health was deteriorating. He didn’t act like it was, but he was showing signs of it visually. He was placed on a special diet, the same one he was on a year earlier… yet nothing seemed to change much.

But, his disposition was as fun and friendly as it always was. He would wake me up every morning with a loving thump on my head and a hearty meow, and I knew it was time to get up to make both of us breakfast. And when I sat here at the computer, filling out things for work, or doing paperwork of some kind, there he was curled up gently resting his head on my feet, as our Sophie used to do.

After Sophie’s passing, Lucky was as dearly devoted to me as anyone could imagine. He was letting me know, by that look in his eyes, that, “It’ll be okay, Mom. We’re in this together.”

And we were. Until June 10.

I called my veterinarian friend, Dr. Wendy Turner, who knew Lucky well. She knew what the situation was the moment she saw him. Tests were run, and his cancer had taken full hold on his stomach.

Dr. Turner looked at me as I held him in my arms. I already knew what had to be done. I saw it in Dr. Turner’s eyes, and I felt it myself, deep within my soul. It was time for Lucky Boy to be back in my son’s arms once again.

Lucky rested easily on the soft, warm blanket on the table. I leaned in close to him and I talked to him and thanked him with all of my heart for all the years of joy, goodness, and laughter he brought to me and my Jon and everyone who ever had the pleasure to meet him.

I told Luck that he would go right from me to Jonny, for a happy, heavenly reunion. The last thing I whispered was, “I love you, my sweet boy.” Then, I kissed him on the cheek, and just a moment later Dr. Turner said to me, “He left, Jude.”

I kissed him on his cute, furry face one last time, said one more “I love you” to Lucky and to Jon.

When I arrived home from Medford, about 45 minutes later, there was no Lucky waiting for me in his window seat. No Lucky resting in front of his food bowl. And no Lucky sitting on the table in the living room watching his favorite afternoon cartoons.

I sat down on the sofa and held his fuzzy grey blanket in my hands. I looked around; and while I certainly was grieving his loss, I could somehow imagine the joyous, heavenly, reunion between Jon and Lucky… and Sophie!

And I made peace with all of it. Yes. I did.

Some goodbyes are not forever.