Perdido,
I look for my heart
It's perdido
Music:Juan Tizol
Lyrics: Ervin Drake & Hans Jan Lengsfelder
Perdido was your not-quite-immediate predecessor. (Ginger was in between, but that is another heartbreaking story).I composed one of my very first poems in English for him... you can read it here.
He was a rather small white cat that adopted us one day, to Nico's delight, and become so beloved that to this day I feel he took my "joie de vivre" away when he died. But enough of this...
The reason I wanted to tell you about Perdido is because I loved him as probably only loved you. In a way he was an older brother you never got to meet. He prepared me to love you the way I did, even if the way I loved you had these sad overtones, these echoes of the future, that tainted it a tiny bit and made me sad for what was coming even as I was being happy for what was living.
One week, I remember, Gabriela and Nico went with her parents and some of her sisters to visit the beaches in the coast of Oregon. I was left all alone with Perdido. We were living already in the house at Roseberry Road ( The one were we met, remember?... probably not: you were just a baby and maybe you even thought you were born there...).
I had a bout of fever for a couple of days that made me unable to leave the bed. My chest felt cold and congested. And finally here we've got to the thing I wanted to tell you about: Perdido spent the whole time I was bedridden with me. As if he knew what was going on with me and just what to do about it, he would lie on my chest and give me his warmth. And this was a cat that would wake up in the morning and beg to go out - and never come back until the evening.
He was a very rare mixture of very friendly and very free. I used to bike to work back then, and when I worked the early shifts he'd wait for me at the top of the hill sometimes, about two blocks from home, and he'd run by my side all the way back, but traversing the front yard of all the houses on the way, instead of on the road.
I still missed him very much by the time you came to live with us. Among the very many things I have to thank you for is that you were my friend just as much as he was. And knowing how you loved other pets, you'd been such good friends if you could only have met!
PS: It's been 8 years. I still miss you dearly. I still put flowers for you.
