Cherished (16 page)

God was not ever discussed in our home, and I knew Jesus probably didn't want anything to do with the dark haired little girl who refused to sing his praises in school assembly at Parkview Junior School in the suburbs of Johannesburg below. I was spiritually rudderless. So, while my father ranted on about the state of the world, blowing smoke and leaving its stale trail through the house, and my mother floated from tennis games to lunches, leaving lipstick stains on glasses and the scent of her spicy perfume mingling with the odor of his tobacco, I held on to fluff and fur.

My savior was four legged, black and marmalade in color, with big green eyes. His name was Yoyo. He purred the loudest and licked the softest of any cat I had ever known. When doors were slammed and voices loud and shrill from my parents' bedroom down the hall, I did not pray to something above to make the fighting stop. Instead I held on tightly to Yoyo's soft, long-haired coat. That was all the comfort that I needed. Yoyo never squirmed under my grasp; he seemed to know to relax and let me draw whatever it was that I needed from him. I had gotten him as a kitten two years earlier from a woman who made dresses for my mother. The dressmaker's cat had given birth to five, and I chose him without hesitation: big green eyes that filled me up with liquid warmth immediately. I had the joy of Yoyo in my life for two and a half years. I experienced all that was good and pure in his small warm body and was given holy love, unwavering and unconditional.

O
N THE MORNING THAT STARTED LIKE ANY OTHER
and ended like no other, I remember Yoyo playing with the laces of my shoes that were never allowed in assembly. “We'll play in the garden, when I come home. I promise,” I said, as I kissed him quickly on his pink nose. And we did, for most of that afternoon until the sun was almost gone, in the mauve light tinged with the last rays of gold. I had climbed the big plum tree and Yoyo had followed me up, meowing and rubbing against my arm. Then helter-skelter, down he went. I stayed sitting in the tree's cool branches, sucking on a plum, the juice sweet and smooth on my tongue. Then a bark and a snarl followed by a hideous strangled meow reached my ears through the foliage. I leaned forward quickly, so I could see all the way to the edge of our property line, the place where the awful sound had come from. I almost toppled down by the vision of the shocking, horrible scene on the far side of the garden. Yoyo had his head pulled through the chain-linked fence. On the other side was Morgan, the dog that lived next door. He was viciously pulling and pulling on
my beloved cat. “no! no! no!” I screamed. I flew down the tree and raced across the lawn, a mother bird on a mission to save its young. I kicked and kicked at Morgan through the spaces in the linked fence until he let go, his mouth dripping red.

I picked up a limp-bodied Yoyo and carried him in my arms across the lawn. The air was cooler now. The light gone. Time moved very slowly and the journey across the lawn felt endless. I was numb and cold but with a single thought in my head. My cat was going to be fine.

I laid Yoyo down on the linoleum kitchen floor and opened a can of cat food. My hands shook. My mouth was dry and my pulse raced with hope.

“Eat, you'll be better. Please stand up, Yoyo, and eat.” But Yoyo didn't move.

I pleaded. I prayed for the first time in my life. “Dear God, please let my cat live. I promise I'll have a bat mitzvah when I'm thirteen. I'll call myself Leah from now on.”

But Yoyo didn't move.

“Jesus,” I pleaded, “I'll sing. I promise, I'll be the loudest in assembly with the sweetest voice of all.”

But still, Yoyo didn't move.

“Please, Yoyo. Please. Just take one small taste.” I put the cat food into the palm of my hand and held it to his bloody mouth.

My nanny, Nellie, came in and saw me kneeling over the
cat I loved so much, the can of salmon cat food smeared all over my hands. “He is dead, Miss Lin,” she said. “Come,” she held her rounded arms out to me, and I ran into them and wept.

Out back, where the corn grew high and the chickens ran free and wild, I buried Yoyo. Thomas, the gardener, dug the grave, and I found the box that my school shoes had come in at the back of my closet. Inside was a brand new pair of laces, so I buried them with Yoyo. I knew he would like that. My parents offered to get me a new kitten, but I said no. There was only one cat for me, and he never was to be replaced.

S
IX MONTHS PASSED,
and I had become even smaller than I already was. My clothes, baggy and ill fitting, looked like they belonged to a rosier, more robust child. Nothing felt right, nothing tasted good, and going to sleep at night was the hardest of all. I did not have Yoyo's soft fur to wrap around my wounds. The thing I believed in most was gone.

While my father still chain-smoked and my mother still drifted in and out of the house, I became fixated with thoughts of Yoyo and what he looked like now. One swelteringly hot summer afternoon, when I could stand it no more, I took a shovel from the cool dark coal shed and went to find out. Deeper and deeper I dug, my hair matted and wet from the solo exertion of exhuming my beloved cat. When metal finally hit the cardboard box I had buried him in, I whispered his name. “Yoyo, I'm here.” But when I opened the box, it released a stench so strong that it made my stomach lurch, and bile filled my parched throat. Inside were bits of bone and tufts of fur. Maggots crawled everywhere, but something inside me willed me to keep looking. The earth around the remains was
thick and tarlike, transformed, it seemed, by his lifeless form. Small white worms crawled through the
black and orange fur that I had clung to so often. But somehow I got past the shock of the stench. I willed myself to not be sick. I needed to be here, with my cat. Then suddenly, I did not feel repulsed or revolted anymore. A calmness came over me. I stood in the garden for a long, long time, just staring at his remains. I did not care that the unforgiving sun was burning my shoulders, or that my head throbbed and my arms ached from my exertions with a heavy shovel. I felt something opening and closing inside me all at once. I bent down and clutched the putrid earth in my bare hands, knowing it was just that. Earth.

I was now ready to begin the task of closing the grave. As I shoveled dirt, I knew that all I was covering was bones and fur, not my beloved cat. Yoyo was long gone. Joined with the savior, as he had once been a savior for me. Now they were one.

Something inside me shifted that day. I no longer hurried my friend Mary Waite through the front door past the mezuzah. In fact, I showed it to her when she next came over. “There's a Hebrew scroll inside,” I told her, pointing toward the symbol of our faith. “My family is Jewish, you know.” She punched me in the arm. “Silly, of course I knew. That's why my mom never serves ham or bacon when you come over.”

I
N SCHOOL ASSEMBLY THE NEXT WEEK,
I opened my mouth and sang, “Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.” My voice was strong and clear, my mouth a perfect O. I knew that up in the heavens they wouldn't be angry at me. I figured anything that powerful would not get hung up on what they were called.

When assembly was over, I sat and tied my shoes, the ones with the one shorter lace. I knew it didn't matter anymore if my name was Linzi or Leah, or whether I was Jewish or Christian. I felt a rush of Yoyo inside me, that same liquid warmth I had felt the first time I laid eyes on him. And, as I followed the throng of kids out into the bright morning sun, God, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Jesus, and Yoyo smiled down on me from above.

I
put down the phone and walked into my husband's office — we both work from home — where Sally, our almost fifteen-year-old black Lab, lay resting, along with the cat, on one of several beds we had placed around the house for her. She lifted her head as I sat down beside her, her eyes milky with age, her muzzle gray, and she smiled. Yes, she smiled.

“I made the appointment. Scott said to come at four forty-five.”

John stopped working and leaned forward to rub Sal's head. “Let's all go sit in the garden,” he said.

We spent almost all day in the garden, the four of us shaded by the walnut tree in late-September sun. Deldy, our calico cat, would not leave Sal's side, and Sal would not leave mine; we had thirteen years of history and a compendium of
memories — sweet, good, and bad — behind us.

I
WAS SINGLE AND LIVING IN THE
M
ARIN COUNTY
town of San Anselmo when I decided I wanted to have a dog again. I was brought up in rural Kent, in England, and because we'd had dogs ever since I could remember, a home without a dog seemed an empty home indeed. My studio apartment — the top floor of a family home where my landlords lived — also had a large deck and another room on the opposite side, so I had a fair bit of space. I thought that, with morning saunters, evening walks, and weekend hikes up to Mount Tam, the prospective new dog would have plenty of room and exercise. The first hurdle was in gaining the permission of my landlords, Christopher and Sabrina. I stopped them one day when they'd just returned from an outing with their two young sons — Nate was six at the time, and Matthew four. I waited until the boys had run into the house; the last thing I wanted was to use the emotional blackmail of children who wanted a dog.

“Um, I wonder if I could ask you something — and really, I know this is a big one, and I really, really understand if you say no, so…”

They looked at me, their smiles frozen in anticipation of my request.

“Well, I've been thinking, I would really like a dog and — ”

The smiles grew broader; Sabrina beamed. “Oh, Jackie, of course you can — that's wonderful!” She leaned around the door. “Hey — Nate! Matthew! Jackie's getting a dog!”

The boys came running out as if the prospective canine were in the driveway, ready for inspection. Questions came
thick and fast — when would the dog come home? What sort of dog? Could they play with him — or her?

I went along to the Humane Society the next day and made my application. I was clear about the type of dog I wanted — medium to large, but not giant; house-trained; good temperament; excellent with kids; and generally an all around nice dog. And though there were dogs I could have taken home in a heartbeat, it would be a while before I found “the one.” The boys took to waiting in the driveway for me to come home.

“Why haven't you got a dog yet?” Matthew asked one day, crestfallen that the long-awaited four-legged one was not with me.

“We're all waiting,” added Christopher, joining the boys.

“I know. I'll find one soon.”

It was on February 14th that I made another trip to the Humane Society, sighing as I walked alongside the cages with dogs jumping up for attention. “Choose me, choose me, I'm a good dog,” they seemed to be saying. I reached a cage where there was a new dog in residence, but no dog to be seen. I took her rap sheet from its holder on the outside of the run — the fact that it was there meant that she was not out with a prospective owner — and read the short history, and behaviorist's assessment. “Two years old...loves to walk…good with children and other dogs…not possessive with food.” Then, “this dog does not know how to play.”

Each dog had a long narrow run, divided in the center by a concrete wall to separate the animal's living space from its personal viewing area. A small archway allowed the dog to go to and fro; possibly the designer had the idea in mind that the dog could go back beyond the archway to the living space if it needed some peace and quiet. On this day, all the other dogs were not about to miss a chance and were firmly up front to be viewed — but where was this dog? I knelt down to look through the archway, to see if she was there. And in that moment, a shy black Labrador with a bright white tuxedo chest was craning her neck, curious to see who might have stopped to look for her. I smiled.

“Hello, you,” I said.

And if a dog could smile, then she smiled the widest smile I have ever seen. She trotted toward me, sat in front of the wire, and put up one paw to touch my hand. I looked around for a helper.

“Can I take this dog for a walk?”

T
HE FOLLOWING DAY,
Christopher, Sabrina, Nate, and Matthew were waiting outside the house when I drove in, with Sally riding shotgun. She passed her first test with flying colors — the boys were all over her and she just lapped it up. Sabrina hugged Sal to her chest, and I thought for a moment I'd lost my new dog.

I knew the first month would be the most challenging for Sal, so she came to work with me for a while. Luckily, I was a sales rep at the time, so I could organize my schedule to allow Sally to spend increasing amounts of time on her own, until she was happy to spend most of the day sleeping on the deck, or in my home office — as long as we had that morning walk and play, and a long hike late afternoon. We met new friends on the morning walk — Nina and her dog, Blaze, and Ellen and Bandit. The three dogs became best buddies, their morning romp together forming part of the ritual that helped turn Sal from a good dog into a great dog. But our early days together were not without problems.