WEBMASTER'S NOTES: This was written my our youngest daughter just shortly after having a lengthy conversation with me via Instant Messenger.
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I didn't have to hear his voice. I could tell that something was wrong by the messages that appeared on the messenger service. Dad's usual quick wit just wasn't there. His messages flashed across the monitor sporadically, and his fingers seemed to be stumbling across the keys. Dad was upset, there was no doubt about it. Questions and condolences went through my mind, but patience was all I had the heart for this night. I would wait for him to tell me.
"I've set up our spot, Baby." The words appeared in royal blue across the screen. I clicked the mouse back to the home page of our new trial website. There I found evidence of the creation he had mentioned, The Poetry Chamber. I smiled as I looked at it.
"See that. Very cool, Pop," I replied. "I will set up a site calendar of events and write a welcome message for the poetry board."
A silence fell between the two as we both worked on the site. Though nearly four hundred and fifty miles separated us, we found ourselves as close as always.
When I finished the calendar, I messenged him again. "Hey, Pop, mission accomplished on the Calendar."
"Where?" he asked, a few moments later.
"Well, where it says calendar," I teased.
"And where did you hide my poetry chamber I set up?" The words clicked across the screen more rapidly now. Thing were building. He wasn't concentrating.
"Not hidden, Pop, it is there where it was when you started it," I replied.
"Where?"
I sighed. So hard-headed I muttered to myself. "Left side.....under home page.....It's indentededed," I typed trying to seem as if I were picking on him. I had to speed this up.
"Not on my copy Kid," was his remark. I could imagine his blue eyes narrowing as his nerves tensed. His brows crowding together and his jaw setting in that stern way it does when he gets edgy. "Let me go back to the home page and check again." A few moments passed. My fingers sat poised on the keys, prepared to ask him what was wrong when the familiar blue print flashed onto the screen. "Oh, do not hit the 'back' button if you are using Internet Explorer. It doesn't return to open work pages."
"Oh, you nut!" I replied. You have to use the navigation buttons on the site itself or you are going back to what your page was like before you worked it."
"I'm lost," the reply stated. The pause after this was lengthy, and I knew the time was drawing near when all would come out.
"Honey, I am sorry 'bout being slow and not getting it right. I just keep having my little Cat pop up in my mind. He is gone with Terry." The blue words glowed from the screen and I sighed. There it was, finally.
"I know it, Dad. I am sorry about it, too. I can't believe it happened so fast. Perhaps it is better that it did, though."
"And I don't like my self a damned bit. I didn't feel this way after Viet Nam and those were humans." The pit of my stomach ached for him.
"But they were not real to you. You did not speak with them, spend time with them. They were images across a distance. They were not real to your heart."
"My hands feel so foreign to me." I shut my eyes to the words for a moment. I wanted to cry. I knew how special the old cat had been to him. It had been my cat when I was a teenager. It had been his friend in the middle of silent nights when loneliness haunted his insomnia. When thoughts and memories tormented his soul. "Little Princess just came in and jumped in my lap. She seems to know or sense every time I am upset."
"You should have called. I had someone near you who would have taken care of everything for you. You would only have had to bury him. Why must you be so hard headed?" I could imagine the scene. With finances so short and bills so much higher, I knew what he had done. What he had no choice in doing. "They are very intuitive, Dad. She is missing him, too, ya know. She quite enjoyed the fights over where to sleep."
"I know she looks for Terry every night after your mother, myself and she get into bed. That is when he usually came to bed." The pause then was so very long. I was at a loss of what to say to console his aching heart. After what seemed like ages, he finally continued, "I am sorry Honey, that I brought this up. I just had to let you know why I ain't here tonight. Let me get a few days under my belt and I think I can do the things we want to do with you (probably this weekend). I will be on the web every night from now on. It makes the time go by faster, and I don't want to bother mom with her time-passer (the T,V. that is.)'
"I understand," I replied. "I was just waiting for you to mention it. Mom told me when I called her. I just figured you were trying to get your mind off of it. I wasn't going to mention it for that very reason."
"I should have known that you two talked about it. I Love you , Baby. I wish I could write like you, Honey. I want to say something about my little friends. Yes I know I am a silly old man and stupid to love cats so much. Hell, I don't care. I just do."
"But it is not silly. There is a type of affection and honesty and loyalty that these creatures offer us. They are far better than humans, though they are rated as underlings to the life cycle. They are the teddy bears that our youth had to leave behind. Our one source of sanctuary when we have no where to go. You stroke their sleek bodies and it is like they caress you back, soothing your very nerves."
A moment of silence fell between us, and I began to think I had just made a mistake.
"Honey, I love you."
"Yeh, me too, Pop. You got good taste," I joked.
"Ok, Kid, you get to work.....I get to work."
"Ok, Pop," I replied. It was the signal I needed to see. I sighed. He was ready to heal.
I turned the page in my notebook before me, and picked up a pen to write;
"Such simple treasures so many of us forget.
The gentle creatures that make our mornings shine,
as they ask for one thing and give that one thing back tenfold.....love.
Such very gentle creatures are our pets. So hard to leave behind..."
~ r.p. Electric Dreamz ~
(April, 2001)
P.S. Jon Tomas was born, and lived his entire life, in the Webmaster's home. He was 14 years old.
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