Viva Vivaldi!

Her name was Vivaldi but we called her Viva. She sang to us when we first met her. She was a calico cat.

I almost referred to her as “our” calico cat. That would have been wrong. Viva didn’t belong to us.

It’s strange how relationships work. We meet so many life forms, during our time in this dimension, period of consciousness, or whatever it is that we should name the human experience. Many of our fellow travelers leave a mark on us. They make us who we are. We do our best to appreciate these beings during the time we have together with them. And yet something extra is added to that appreciation after they have passed.

Yes, Viva has passed. Day after day, year after year, she was there, following one of us, and then there, sleeping on one of our beds, and then, oh yes, there, hollering early in the morning for food. She was gentle, sweet, and, mostly, undemanding. We enjoyed her. We loved her. We knew – when illness struck – that we would miss her. We are saddened to be proven right about missing her.

It’s a cliche that a human never really appreciates another person or being until she, he, or it is gone. We do recognize others, sometimes very much so, when they are alive with us. What we don’t recognize, what we can’t be expected to recognize, is what our lives will be like when those special others – whether human, pet, or other – are not physically here. It’s impossible to know that, isn’t it? And it’s also a bit different, isn’t it, similar and yet unique in its own feeling, each time one of those special others departs from us.

We all have an impact, on and for each other. So we all matter. The world is not the same when any one of us leaves it. The music changes.

I wasn’t thinking about humans and relationships when I sat at the piano last week. I was thinking about Viva. I was thinking about how fortunate my family was that she chose us those many years ago in the animal shelter. How she wouldn’t leave us alone when we walked through the cat area. How she was softly singing for our attention.

The melody that follows is how it felt for me remembering her song. It was recorded in one take. No rehearsal. Spontaneous.

Just like Viva.