Welcome to College: The black omen which began with Salem

The first 6 years of my adulthood were littered with frantic phone calls, nursing homes, hospitals, funerals, Shiva's, and black dresses. The time I spent getting acquainted with the grim reaper shaped who I have become as a 20-something slowly and subtly. Each successive loss was imprinted upon my soul like a tattoo. 

I chose my college in the way any emotionally stunted, insolent 17 year old would, through laziness and fear. The college I chose to attend was a 15 minute drive from my house and allowed me to continue living with my mother and brother. Additionally, two of my best friends from high school would be attending that college as well. At the time I liked that my choice allowed me to commute back and forth to my home between classes.

My very first class of college was some over achieving literature course which, if memory serves me correctly, I believe I ended up dropping. I think the idea of reading "Great Expectations" cover to cover in three days was a bit daunting to me at the time. I left my first class slightly disenchanted by the whole "college experience" that had been promised to me all throughout high school. Regardless on the drive home I was still excited to go tell my mother what my first class at college had been like.

I bust through the front door and dropped my keys, bag, and notebook on the table stopping for a second to pet my dog, Cooper. "Mom?" I called in that typical obnoxiously attention demanding manner teenagers have perfected. "Upstairs, hun" she had responded compliantly. I put my foot on the red and brown oriental runner we had installed on the steps so that the dog could comfortably dart up and down the staircase with added ease of traction, and glanced up. At the top of the stairwell my crazy little black cat, Salem was lying in a oddly sprawled manner.

I had brought home Salem in the ninth grade. My mother was away on business in London and I somehow coerced my gentle Poppy into letting me keep him. "Your mother is going to kill me" he had kept repeating, but I knew my Poppy couldn't say no to me, he just didn't have it in  him. Salem was in a word: crazy. He was the most persistent, intelligent, cut-throat creature I had ever come into contact with. His presence in the house was strong as every meal that was eaten necessitated a fort built of condiments to protect your food from the prying paws of this cat. He would eat just about anything he could get his paws and and had a particular love of olives. He established his dominance in the house very quickly. One day I had come home to find my 90 pound dog cowering under the dining room table, as he stuck his nose out Salem would rush over and whack him repeatedly on the snout with his two paws. This became known as "Kitty Kung Fu". Perhaps my favorite trait of Salems was his pristine bug killing skills. I had a buggy call for him, and whenever I called him he would come running from whatever corner he had been hiding in the house, swoop into the air, catch and kill whatever bug was terrorizing me. He was like a ninja, no bug was too fast, too high, or too big for him to stalk and kill.

Salem was the kind of cat who was always alert, even when he slept he was never fully still. So when I began to climb the stairs that day and he didnt even flinch his ear, I knew something was wrong. He was dead. And when I say dead, I mean irreversibly, hopelessly, rigor mortis dead.

Following this discovery what happened next was a blur: driving to the vet, crying, finding a shoebox, placing his little beanie baby spider inside, rain, a hole in the front yard, umbrellas, more tears, burial.

The quiet in the house following Salems death was deafening. It was the first time in my life I really understood what a large presence an absence could have upon my life. Salem's death was my first taste of the loss and sadness which resulted in death. Little did I know that those feelings of sadness and loss were but the hor'dourves in the meal that is grief.

An Introduction: Death, Wrinkles, and Change

Sometimes change occurs slowly, it takes hold of you by surprise, etching its way into your being like a wrinkle slowly carves its indentation into the skin. Just like wrinkles, change in oneself is subtly evident upon ones face; a change in the way an eye twinkles, the width of smile, how high an eyebrow is raised. Other times change is rapid and happens all at once, and is as obvious as a drastic haircut. I believe everyone experiences both kinds of change throughout their life time, but most people fail to recognize the snail like progression of "wrinkle change".

 From the the time you graduate high school until the time you enter your early twenties you will experience a great deal of growth.  The universe welcomes you into adulthood in a variety of ways, whether it be by schooloing, children, job, or responsibility. My grand welcome into adulthood was death. For the first 5 years of my adulthood death circled my family and friends in the same cunning manner in which a lion circles its prey.

I had come out of my childhood as a psychologists wet dream, complete with a laundry list of insecurities and psychological scars from a divorce dominated environment. I had an arrogant sense of indestructibility, after all, I had been to hell and back, I had already paid whatever karmic debt I may have owed, right? Wrong.

I in no way mean to compare my strife to the atrocities that exist in the world. In comparison to a "Slumdog Millionaire" lifestyle I have lived a cushy and charmed life. I merely mean to illustrate that I had visions of rainbows, wealth, and epic love for my adulthood, visions which were shaken and shattered with an intensity that would register on the Richter Scale.