Harriet was my oldest friend.
We adopted her when I was six years old. I don’t remember much of life before we were friends. We spent the the better part of two decades always together. It’s strange to admit, but no other friendship in my life has encompassed so much time, or had such an enduring quality of home. She was incredibly special.
Harriet was, from the very day we met, a very brave, very strange, one of a kind creature. As a kitten, she was curious, outgoing yet often shy; she did not meow at all for a long period of time, often opening her mouth as if she were yelling at us, but not making any sounds. Later, when she learned to meow, she never stopped, and spent every day thereafter shouting and talking to us at length.
Upon waking up, or wanting me to wake up, upon entering a room, or eating a snack, seeing something, noticing someone, asking for anything, or just walking around, Harriet always had something (loudly) to say. I’ve never met a cat with such a unique vocabulary, nor have I ever been so truly convinced that an animal could speak as when I listened to her.
Harriet was my best friend.
Like most weird school kids of my generation, I spent many years obsessed with the Warriors book series, children’s novels about a society of feral cats divided into clans, ruled by a complex spiritual and social code. Harriet was, I think, a true warrior - a great hunter, an agile explorer, empathetic and social, extremely courageous.
In her youth she would bring us mice or birds(although, she would not often actually kill them but simply catch them and deposit them, gruesomely, at our door; perhaps this was her good and gentle nature, but probably it was just laziness). She would fend off outside cats who tried to enter her garden. She would even defend her space against and chase off other wild animals, like deer or foxes, absolutely fearless. A few years ago, by then a little old lady, Harriet was attacked by a mother deer with her newborn fawn, terrified and overprotective. Up against a wild animal wanting to kill her, my friend was very brave, still a warrior.
It’s a bit silly, I suppose, to try and explain that I think my little cat was some sort of epic hero. That ballads and poems should be sung about her, immortalising her in the stars. But it’s all true.
And, of course, at the same time, she was just a very funny, round, happy little cat. And she was a terrible old woman who lived in our house and shouted at us. Mostly, we sat together. I held her paws while she napped, she kept me company through years of school, and then later, after I no longer lived at home, during holidays when I returned. As a baby, she’d had to have teeth removed on one side of her mouth, so when she slept sometimes her mouth would hang open. She snored, she slept in strange positions, she would press her face against mine, knead my bare skin with her sharp claws, the little injuries borne out of love. She purred a lot when we were together.
Living an ocean away from the place where I grew up is never easy. But at the very least, my friends and family have telephones, social media, we keep in touch. It’s different, though, with a pet. Cats should have their own phones, so they can call and say hi. There’s no way to tell them you’re thinking of them, or to hear about their day. I missed her all the time. Now I miss her more.
An ode to the great warriors of old: the epic poem Beowulf ends with a description of the mourning undertaken in the aftermath of the old hero’s death in his battle against a dragon. The final note is grief and remembrance. From Maria Dahvana Headley’s translation:
bro, no man knows, not me, not you,
how to get to goodbye.
[Beowulf’s] guys tried.
They remembered the right words. Our king!
Lonely ring-wielder! Inheritor of everything!
He was our man, but every man dies.
Here he is now! Here our best boy lies!
The poem describes Beowulf’s last wish,
to light the future,
because of all men who’ve ever lived, he was the strongest,
and the bravest, and the brightest, and the best.
In the end, she did not fight the dragon. How fortunate, that there are no songs to be sung about great feats of strength, at the end. In her last week she sat outside in the December sun, she talked to everyone around her, she was beloved and never alone. We’re left with the quiet song of a life full of love.
I don’t know how to get to goodbye.
I miss my friend. My little baby, warrior queen, strange gargoyle, singer of bird song, my best friend. She was, I am certain, the bravest, the brightest, the best.
-isobel