Autumn 1994

Bandol, the black-and-white cat I grew to love as my own, unexpectedly had to go to the vet. It was not good news.

I had first encountered the feline when I started to date the woman. We were eating Chinese food in her Astoria, Queens apartment and I had given Bandol a taste of my eggroll. She jested, in a mock fortune-cookie tone of voice, “Feed cat. Take home.”

Four years later we were in Atlanta, and the cat was sick, very sick. Something was wrong with his white cells. Something that wouldn’t get better, and he would get sick all over again soon and be in pain. He was only five years old, and the decision was made to put him down. She looked at me in the car and said, “I’m losing you, and now I’m losing him. My two boys.”

This was the fall of 1994.

photo: Wazari