River: Remembering the FlowerCat: 49

[mdlbear]

If things had gone differently in July of 2021, Colleen and I would be celebrating our 49th anniversary today, and embarking on our 50th year of marriage. Things didn't, and we're not.

I never know just how it's going to hit me. This year -- yesterday -- I hit an emotional landmine on the last page of Cordwainer Smith's story "The Game of Rat and Dragon.

... as he buried his face in the pillow, he caught an image of the Lady May.

“She is a cat,” he thought. “That’s all she is⁠—a cat!”

But that was not how his mind saw her⁠—quick beyond all dreams of speed, sharp, clever, unbelievably graceful, beautiful, [...]

Where would he ever find a woman who could compare with her?

Colleen was always some kind of cat to me. Objectively, she didn't share all that many attributes with the Lady May, but there it was, and objectivity has nothing to do with it. I buried my face in my hands and sobbed silently for a few minutes.

Comments

[ellenmillion]

Sending love.

[mdlbear]

Thanks!

[acelightning73]

Two of my favorite Cordwainer Smith stories were always The Game of Rat and Dragon and The Ballad of Lost C'mell. (My baby nickname was Kitten, because I was a premie and I looked no bigger than a newborn kitten.) And D'Joan, a dog-woman who was the reincarnation of Joan of Arc. He really had a lot to say with the stories of the Underpeople. Yes, that was a lesson we were trying to learn back when those stories were written. And we still haven't gotten it right.

[mdlbear]

Agreed -- The Dead Lady of Clown Town (Where D'Joan comes from) is another of my all-time favorites. He wrote so many memorable characters...

[acelightning73]

And in "Clown Town", the cow person who bakes a brand-new ceramic drinking cup to offer a refreshing drink of water to a human visitor,so there'd be no "animal" contamination on the cup or in the water. And I always liked the Dead Lady, who had had her personality imprinted in the brain of a robot who looke just the way she looked when she was alive.

[cellio]

{hugs} She's left a big hole, and it's natural to grieve. Don't let anybody tell you nonsense about time limits and stuff. She's an essential part of your life!

[freyjaw]

She's special. And lovable.

[gorgeousgary]

*hugs*

[mdlbear]

One of the things I liked best about "Clown Town" was the framing narrative, looking back on events in the distance past and mentioning the later artistic interpretations.

(Edited to change the icon to the lightsails on the cover of Space Lords, from "The Lady Who Sailed the Soul". Which is another story with a good framing device.)

[mdlbear]

Thanks. Agreed -- what I often tell people if the occasion comes up is that every grief is different.

[mdlbear]

Thanks!

[acelightning73]

Smith was very good at describing a setting in a way that lets us know why these people are doing these things. And his "day job" I think I remember he was an expert in Asian languages for the CIA. And the bits of doggerel he included to make his characters easier to understand; "C'mell"; "She got the which of the what-she-did; Hid the bell with a blot, she did. But she fell in love with a hominid..."

[acelightning73]

I miss my parents and my aunts. I miss my former High Priestess and High Priest. She had a bizarre form of kidney failure, and had to go to dialysis a couple of times a week. Her venous port got infected and fell apart, and she bled to death on the floor of her kitchen while trying to call 911. My High Priest developed a weird form of cancer because of some of the recreational drugs he had used, and he died in a hospital. And a few of my covensibs died of various chronic illnesses. One had a heart attack while walking up the stairs to the apartment where he and his partner lived. Partner had severe gout - his fingers were so gnarled he could barely hold a fork to feed himself.He died of the complications of the condition, a few weeks after his partner had the heart attack. They're making bad puns at each other in the Summerland.

I miss my childhood music teacher, who gave me piano and voice lessons until I went away to college. I miss the French Canadian announcer I worked with at the UN. He died of AIDs.

[dejla]

Grief is like that, you know? It sits at the back of your mind waiting for you to be distracted, and then it stabs like a fencer and jumps back to watch the pain pour out.

You will see her again, and there will be no death there.

[mdlbear]

Thanks. I think an afterlife is extremely unlikely, but it comforts me greatly to imagine it.

[dejla]

I have always believed there was something afterwards, though I have never really figured out what it would be. It does comfort me, which helps.

Whether we go on in some fashion or not, as long as people remember her and her life, she lives.

[mdlbear]

And I'll keep on remembering as long as I can. I hope that of my songs will outlive me, and keep the memories going after I'm gnoe.