Cougar Eulogy

            Mom, teary-eyed, has gone out to work in her garden.  John and his friends, Steve and Coletta, are moving equipment around in preparation to bury the cougar who died last night.  I am writing a eulogy.

            Homer was about seventeen, a rescue John took on a year or two ago.  He had a great purr, made louder by his chronic lung problems.  He also had the odd habit of plucking his tail.  John consulted the vet about both problems, and Homer went through several runs of antibiotics last year. 

            You do what you can for elderly cats.  John provides a healthy diet of a raw meat blend made specifically for big cats, a steady routine, and affectionate attention.  I’m not sure how you measure a cougar’s contentment, but Homer—like the rest of John’s animals—enjoyed plenty of living space in his own pen, the occasional dead chicken, a secure water bowl (heated in the winter), and a raised platform from which to survey his kingdom.

            John had to move the flat-bed trailer in order to get out the backhoe, which I just heard driving by.  Steve will dig the hole for the grave.  I don’t know what you say or do at a pet cougar’s burial, but it will be a private affair, probably within the next hour or two. . . .

            Coletta and I talked about how hard it is to lose a pet as Steve operated the backhoe.  Mom intently worked on some more weeding.  John got out the wheelbarrow and trudged over to the cage.  While he, Coletta, and Steve retrieved Homer’s 150-pound body, I slipped indoors to get a bottle of root beer for Mom.

 After loading Homer into the wheelbarrow, John and Steve took turns pushing it from the cougar pens to the newly dug hole near the garden shed.  I brought Mom’s root beer to her and then took a last look at Homer.  As Steve prepared to fill in the grave, Mom and I came back to the house before she could ask again what was going on with the backhoe.  She’s remembered and forgotten, remembered and forgotten, and I didn’t want to break the news of Homer’s death again.

I heard the backhoe drive by a few minutes ago.  Mom is reading Time magazine.  Steve and Coletta are heading back home.  I am finishing up this eulogy.  John will be over for dinner at six.  And there will be just four cougars to feed this evening.