hrj

21 years is a very good run for a cat. For the last couple of years, Angel has been spending most of the time on her heating pad with regular excursions for food and foot-rubs. (I.e., she rubs; my feet.) But though she was clearly an old lady cat, she was in more or less stable health. This week, that changed. (Short version, probable digestive obstruction, but with other minor long-term issues including probably kidney misfunction.) After several days close observation, I decided it was time and took her on the one-way trip. It felt a little premature ... but then, with previous aged cats I know I've left it later than it should have been. I had a certain amount of self-pressure due to the upcoming holiday trip and not wanting to leave hard decisions to a cat-sitter. The folks at the vet's office were great. I came in all prepared to be defensive about my decision and the doctor said, "You know your cat. If you say it's time, it's time."

I spent the last hour sorting through items to be freecycled (canned food, unopened bag of dry food, unused litter, absorbent pads, recirculating water fountain after I sanitize it) and items to be trashed (box, opened food, grooming equipment, opened health supplies) and cleaning up the inhabited areas (including several stains, curtesy of this week's decline).

It's going to be a little strange not having a cat after 40 years of continuous cattedness but I'm not planning to get another one at the moment.

She was a good cat. She came to me with the name Angel and a reputation for an unfortunate fondness for small furry creatures (that were supposed to be fellow residents). In honor of that, I decided her secret true name was Melangell, after the Welsh saint whose fondness for small furry creatures was much more benign.

(The usual rule about not using real names is suspended for this post.)

This past Saturday, my friend Cynthia McQuillin died. She was a singer and songwriter, a writer of fiction, and any number of other things. To say that she had spent much of her life in indifferent health would be a gross understatement. For the last half dozen years or more, she has worked through cycles of respiratory crises (bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma, you name it). Each time, against all rational expectation, she would fight her way back, not simply to ordinary activity, but to being able to sing, perform, and even record again. Nearly ten months ago she entered the cycle again and this time never quite made it back to the surface.

I confess my first reaction to the news was to make it All About Me. I was a bad person for having visited her only once during her recent stay in nursing homes. I'd meant to make it a more regular thing, but ... well, never mind the excuses. In the way of fannish friendships, I'm used to seeing people when I see them and assuming they're going on with their lives when I don't. For quite some time I hadn't realized she hadn't bounced back, because I wasn't expecting to bump into her (in real or virtual life) during that time anyway.

I first met Cynthia back when I entered the filk music community. She was a Big Name Filker already (although it was always hard to convince her of that). Among the usual assortment of amateur guitar strummers, she was a seriously professional musician. She had quite a reputation -- back in the good old days of Off Centaur (this was back before the bad old days of Off Centaur, followed by the seriously obnoxious days of Firebird) -- for being able to crank out a song on any topic requested in the time it took most people to tune their guitars. A lot of her music was flavored by a bit of a Latin beat -- a bit odd for someone named McQuillin unless you know that her father had been a professional bandleader in that musical genre.

I think I first really started getting to know her on an individual basis when I pitched in with the crew helping her move from San Jose to South San Francisco. I was also in on her move from South San Francisco to Berkeley where she was renting rooms from Rachel Holmen. Things get very intertwined: I bought my first computer from Rachel Holmen, and later she was my boss when I was working part-time at Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine -- and Cynthia was then living in Marion's basement (along with her partner Jane) and cooking for the MZB household. We saw a lot more of each other then -- not only in passing when I was there working, but we got more in the habit of socializing. There was a short-lived writers group. There were any number of house filks. There was the occasional Austen tea party.

One of the most striking things about Cynthia was how strongly she worked at encouraging other people's creativity. I'd like to think that she was simply so comfortable in her own talent that she never saw a need to suck up attention for herself, but I'm afraid there was always a streak of unfortunate self-deprecation -- she turned the focus to other people from not entirely believing that she deserved it herself. This, despite constant sales of her albums, awards for her music, and the inspiration of a number of filk community phenomena. For my part, I always deeply appreciated that when she wanted to include songs of mine on her projects, they were different songs than the two or three that seem to be all the rest of the world thinks I've written.

The news of her death was hardly unexpected -- from what I hear, her doctors had moved her into the "borrowed time" category years ago. But if I had a wish, it would not be that she would have continued on in crisis-cycle mode, but that she could go back and re-live the life she ought to have had in the first place.