The Black Cat

*This is an exercise in creative nonfiction*

On the day my grandmother died, there appeared a black cat, darting to and fro among the fall leaves without regard for the life extinguished just inside.  My brother sat on the ground, picking at his cuticles, lost in his own thoughts, his hat pulled low over his eyes  The cat made its way to him, roping around his crossed legs, its meow echoing through the empty fall air. 

He patted the cat, and it rolled onto its back in ecstasy.  While we waited for the funeral home to come for the body, we all watched the cat in silence and wondered "What do we do?  Who can answer all of the questions?  How should we feel?" and the cat chased a leaf down the small driveway, the answers to his own questions out there somewhere in the infinite. 

"They must be lost," we said as we waited, the sun dipping behind the trees and casting our faces in shadow, the tears growing cold on our cheeks and surprising me.  I hadn't realized I was still crying. 

"They must be lost," we said not wanting to admit that we were the ones who were lost; "We don't know what to do," we told the officer who responded, but his shift change had come and passed, and he grew impatient, his indifference hardening around him. 

And the black cat continued to play around our grieving family unaware of the thoughts flittering through us, the things we should have said, the things we should have done scattered in the atmosphere like many seeds, floating and displaced, never to take root. 

"It's not her," we told ourselves, "That isn't her lying in there.  It's just a body." these words we feed ourselves in these moments, hoping that they will provide comfort, sustenance in our time of need, but outside, the world moves forward, and the black cat continued to move about, slinking among our legs as some beast. 

"It's not her," we said.  "It's just a body." 

My mother repeating to herself, "I can't feel her here.  She isn't here; I would feel her if she was."

She is not here.  The black cat continues to roam; he will grow cold as winter creeps upon us.  But she is not here, and she will not be cold.