My most ardent regret

David’s post made me think of my own animal-related grief. My resistance to writing this is so strong that I decided it was what I needed to do.

Boo was the cat of my life. We got her when I was very young: no more than two or three years old. Whenever my mother came in from work, I would ask her, “Did you bring a surprise?” This was because she occasionally brought home a small treat for my brother and me. Usually it was a Hershey bar. But this time it was a young, slim Siamese cat in a carrying case. She was washing her front paw.

This cat and I were inseparable for more than ten years. If you look at my childhood photo albums, Boo is in every other shot. I slept with her every night. She followed me almost everywhere I went. She would always appear when I was crying, as if to console me. I have loved all my cats, especially Mac (probably because he resembles and reminds me so much of her), but I don’t think I’ll ever have a bond of that depth again with any other animal.

When we went on trips, I would pine for her. Sometimes I irritated my mother by counting the days until I would get back home to her. She would say, “This is our vacation; don’t wish the days away.” 

When I turned fourteen, I fell in love for the first time. My boyfriend’s name was Mark. That summer, as always, my family went to the beach for a week, and instead of missing Boo, all I could think about was him. The next-door neighbors were boarding Boo, and when we got home, I gave them a quick call, told them we were back, and asked them to let the cat out so that she could come home. Then I immediately called Mark and probably spent the rest of the evening talking with him. I didn’t give Boo another thought. I certainly wasn’t worried about her. She was an outdoor/indoor cat who knew the neighborhood well and their house was less than twenty feet from ours.

She never came home. She was old and I believe she went away to die, as cats do. I can’t help believing she decided it was time to die because I hadn’t even come next door to get her, as I always had before.

I have done far worse things in my thirty-eight years, but nothing I regret as much as that. If I could go back and do only one thing in my life over again, I would go back and pick her up from the neighbors’ house instead of just calling in our arrival. Of all the mistakes I’ve made, and there are many I can’t consider without shuddering — relationship mistakes, career mistakes, a thousand things I should or shouldn’t have said or done — if I could fix only one of them, that is the one I would choose. Nothing else even comes close.