Post-covid author visits still seem like a nostalgic novelty, but I did one this week—traveling to the southernmost edge of Virginia in my Little Red Truck.* This visit was emotionally intense and also had all the lightness of a springtime ramble in the hills. But also, while I was away, The Hatke Family Cat passed away.
My Cat.
I say “My Cat” but we’d broken up, actually. She moved out years ago and went to live with the man in the house just across the abandoned railroad tracks. Still close enough to know she was there, but rather definitively Not With Us.
Still, the thread of her life stretched back almost to the beginning of our family. She came to us as a kitten and we never knew her exact age, but she was nearly as old as my daughter, Angelica, who is twenty.
The river keeps flowing no matter what you do.
*More about this author visit soon. Kind of a lot happened.
