Filed under: Peace Corps Romania | Tags: cat, Cosette, Dana, goodbye, Kerouac, Mada, Peace Corps, Romania, sad, surprise, Surprise Party
The first of my real Romanian ‘goodbyes,’ began this week: on Wednesday, June 09, I gave away my cat, Cosette.
I’ve had Cosette since late September/early October of 2008– just a few weeks after I came to Petrosani. Thereby, she has lived with me for about 18 months– from kitten to cat-hood. I gave her to a 6th grade student, Dana,who has a little, wood home on the steep hillside behind my school. Dana has three other cats, and an enormous garden for them to play in. My reasons for giving away Cosette are many, but they also hinge on my assumption that the “better-life,” I envision here for her outweighs the supposed heartache for me that might linger in her little mind. I can only presume.
I was to meet Dana at the beginning of the small dirt drive that winds behind the school, up between homes to the crest of a hill where she lives with her mother and father. I cat-napped away the afternoon alongside Cosette, sharing some sweet dreams for the last time, then I delicately placed her and her favorite lamb ‘doll,’ into my cat crate, and walked to the meeting place. Early along the way, a fourth grade student saw me on his bicycle and accompanied me for the duration. I was secretly thankful– talking to a student made me seem more comfortable and accustomed to this strange event– carrying a crying cat around on the street. It also made me less aware of the scores of curious eyes contemplating me as I walked by.
I found Dana waiting for me with another student, Mădă. Before I could pass Dana the case she asked if Cosette was heavy.
“Nu,” I replied.
“Ok,” said Dana. “Come with me.”
I unhesitatingly followed. I figured Dana needed me to carry the cat the rest of the way to her new home. I obliged. As we walked, Mădă and Dana squeaked to each other. Cosette quieted– sniffing at the air carrying scents of farm-fresh green onion (she loves to munch the leaves), and the smell of domesticated duck and pig wafting about the early-evening twilight.
We passed through Dana’s gate, and continued upwards and across to her house. “Teacher– stop here,” she quickly commanded. “And close your eyes.”
They had a surprise, I figured, and again I obliged her. I gently set Cosette down on the dirty track next to the wood shed, in the shade of short, budding plum trees. Now a tiny, delicate hand took mine and began to guide me away. Dana’s tiny fingers carried me up a steep, and I begin to hear whispers hiding in the washing breeze blowing through the cottonwood and birch branches. I heard “1– 2– 3–”
“… SUPRIZĂ!” called out a half-dozen voices. I opened my eyes and saw a handful of students– mostly 6th grade– standing in a small clearing before me. In the nearby trees were violet ribbons tied to the lowest branches, and alongside them blue balloons filled with confetti. Blankets were arranged around a TV table, which was covered in paper plates and cups. There were poppy-seed and sesame pretzels, and orange soda. Best of all, was a hefty chocolate covered cake with a whipped-cream cursive “Good-bye” scrawled across it– the handiwork of someone’s mother.
I passed out squares of cake, and the girls brought Cosette up the hill, hefted her out of her crate, and carefully cradled her in their arms. She was content, and dozed. The boys chatted excitedly with me about America, and each of them promised to learn English even better next year so that they could come see me in America when they were older. I told them if they made it to my country, they most certainly had a place to stay.
After the cake was all gone and the soda had been sipped and splashed about, we cleaned up the clearing and wandered down the hill to Dana’s house. There I met her father– a farmer with a gentle limp in his left leg. He played his wood flute for me, and proudly presented me with a tall glass of țuică harvested from those same small trees shading us in the dwindling sun. Dana’s mother appeared and offered me a hand-made black and white fabric bag, to remember them by.
The boys got to sip the țuică too, and the few of us took a short walk through my town’s central park before I excused myself and wandered home. I got into my apartment and instinctively looked for Cosette on the large rug in the hall. “Ah– right,” I thought to myself when I realized she wouldn’t be there, or anywhere. For the first time in 18 months, I was really, truly alone in my apartment. I missed her, but I also felt ‘filled,’ by the memory of her. Something holy ineffable had been left behind in me, and would remain despite the lack of her physical presence.
It was the same thing I felt on Friday when all of my most adored students came to me after the closing bell ceremony. They cried, and they hugged me, and they choked on half-sentences filled with words of “favorite,” “promise,” and “miss.”
And, thereby, a lesson I learned a long while ago had been affirmed (as it often has in Peace Corps, and will continue to be): I am better for the amazing love and relationships I have had, despite the inevitable heartbreak of their ending– and they always will end, in one way or another. Existence is transcience, no matter how hard you want to hold on.
But be assured that Love creates Love– and the holy connections of friendship we encounter strengthen on themselves, and leave a person more solid and complete than they ever were before. Despite the sadness of the goodbye– that thing Kerouac calls “the too-huge world vaulting us,” he also reminds us to be steadfast, look ahead, and “lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”
And I lean on.
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