Dating : Grieving With a Friend*

Sylvester…

… our friend Billy’s elderly cat

Is dying,

Kidney disease.

And it looks like

He’ll be put down

This afternoon.

Cat’s get old and die,

Of course,

As do dogs

And people

And everything

Except God

Who may or may not

Even exist.

But this cat

And his friend

And their friendship

Most assuredly exist,

No doubt about it.

And if you are reading this

You exist,

In fact, even if you aren’t

Reading this you exist,

As do I and as does everyone

Else who is alive now

And soon or eventually

will be dead like

Sylvester the cat,

Who is so greatly beloved.

Beloved just as

all of us hope we are

Or wish we could be

Or

May one day realize

To our great sadness

That we never have been.

Which would make

Our situation even worse

Than poor old

Sylvester’s is today.

*******************

I Sent My Friend…

… a poem about

his dying cat

and his relationship and grief.

I worried that

I might have stepped across

a boundary of respect

or privacy or some other

line I shouldn’t have crossed.

But when my friend

sent back the message,

“Just read Sylvester’s

poem. How lucky he was

to have a friend as good

as you. He rests so much

easier now. And I do too.

Thanks Terry Trueman.”

Can a moment get any better than this,

for a poet or any other human being?

********************************

*This story was posted many months back in a prose blog form, but here in it’s form as original poems In WHO KNEW?!

Wikipedia & Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Trueman