What if Dean Koontz' Angel was a Cat?

For more than a week after Woody died, it rained. A few hours after we buried him the clouds swooped in like a big, heavy curtain and then the wind picked up and whipped around with a whoosh! and buckets of wet sky came crashing down.
I am big now.
*

4 p.m.
Woody’s Usual Walk Time

I walk along his favorite path around the yard, actually hoping to step in an old piece of his poo. There’s a little tree over his gravesite, and the bougainvillea hugs it. His grave marker arrives next week. I miss Woody so much the pain is real – like a dull ice pick pressing on the center of my chest, an orange blocking my windpipe. I speak softly to him, like a crazy person, then trudge back to the empty house.
Three and a half pounds – he was huge to me.
*

Back in the house, I shuffle through “To Do” lists, and find one from just last week: “Get SENIOR treats for Woody.” Our calico cat, Rebecca, rubs against my leg and walks over to the spot where Woody and I laid just hours before. It’s empty now, but she sniffs it delicately. Then she darts over to the magazine rack and starts smacking around a little piece of Styrofoam. She licks her shoulder and gazes at Woody ’s empty spot; looks out at the yard, the sky. She plops down and looks back at his new spot in the yard, her tail switching to the song of a bird outside. She makes a funny little sound in the back of her throat, gets up and looks in the corner of the closet where Woody used to go when the thunder was too loud. All the while, she has not meowed once.
*
Woody is hiding from me, and I can’t find him anywhere. I’ve looked in closets, even in shoeboxes and pocketbooks on shelves he couldn’t possibly reach, let alone curl up into.
Someone – Jen? David? A stranger? – leads me outside into the far corner of the backyard and points to a small mound of dirt.
“He died,” this person says.
I turn around and go back inside, calling him, telling him to stop playing now because really, really, this game has gone on long enough.And then I wake up.

Uh-oh....

“Are we there yet?!”

We are on our way through Illinois farmland, en route to Michigan, David’s home state, from California, where we met. Convinced that the man I love couldn’t be from a bad place, I am moving there, sight unseen. In Mover’s Terms* this is what is known as a perfect Swan Dive.
“About another day and a half,” David says.
“Waaa.”
After awhile I say, “If I see one more farm, I’m going to scream.”
David eyes me sideways and says, “Uh, Dara?”
“What.”
“There are a lot of farms in northern Michigan.”
Uh-oh.

Baby Pictures: Woody the Incredible 1 Pound Pup

ANOTHER BOOK ON THE WAY

Dear Readers and Fellow Pet Lovers,
Just wanted to give you the heads up - yay - that I have another book coming out in a couple of months for pet lovers of all ages - young, and not so young anymore....
The book is entitled WOODY'S GARDEN and it will be available through all the major channels (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc., along with the website of my publisher, Xlibris.com.
Best of all, it has pictures!!!
And I'll have special offers for you bloggers!
Will keep you posted.
As always, your comments are welcome.