I can’t remember the first time I saw her, or for that matter, the last time. She was a little girl, tiny, and stood beside the road waiting for the school bus with the other children, five or six of them, and she waved at me. I waved back. So, every morning, five days a week, she would see my truck, she would wave, and I would wave back. Some of the other kids did, too. But she never missed a day, if she saw me.
Of course, some days she was not there, playing sick, actually sick, skipping school, holidays I didn’t get, and some days I was playing sick, skipping work, and sometimes writing.
Late August I would look for her, and she would be there, and wave, and I would wave back.
Then went on for years. Literally, it went on for years. The first time I saw her I was still married, Bert was an only dog, and my future uncertain. As far as I could tell, the first time I saw her she was in the first grade, and that too is an uncertain time.
Years later, I noticed she was wearing a skirt that was, well, uh, too short. That’s when I realized she had grown up in front of me, one workday at a time. She started wearing her hair fixed up nice, she was growing upbut she still waved.
Maybe it was high school, or she went later in the day, or maybe her family moved. But she was gone after a summer. The next year she was still missing. I never saw her again.
About a mile from where she once lived, a cat appeared, many years after. It was a dark orange cat, deep richly orange, and the cat would haunt one yard and another across the road. It never waved at me, but I did blow my horn one day when it timed the run across the road too close.
Today I saw a flash of orange a mile from where he usually haunts, on the side of the road, and that was that. I went back, just to make sure, traffic buzzing by and people blowing their horns at me. But the orange cat was dead. Dead, dead, no possibility of life at all.
I wonder if the little girl, full grown adult by many years, likely a mom with kids of her own, maybe a graduate of some school somewhere that handed her a piece of paper saying she was smart and could make good money. That’s what I hope. That’s what I want. I also want her to be out there somewhere and telling people she remembers an ancient man, likely dead of old age years ago, who used to wave at her in the mornings, before school.
There’s hope in every child. Every tiny human has in them the endless possibilities of life. I hope her parents never lost sight of that in her. I hope they did right by her.
Outside cats, however, especially near a road, are always living on borrowed time.
Take Care,
Mike
Growing up, we allowed our cats outside. Almost all of them met their end on the grill of a vehicle.
I wonder about the people that I have met that I no longer see. Maybe giving directions was not for me….Just kidding.
There are many people I have met over the years that I no longer have contact with and it is occasionally I think about them and wonder what they are up to–and hope they are doing well. It is interesting the various people I have had come in to and out of my life; has definitely made it richer.
Tim, I wish I had stayed in closer contact with Bruce. I kept meaning to. But then one day he was dead, and I’ll always wonder what the hell happened.
In a small town that I used to live in, there was a older man who was in a power wheelchair. Every weekday, he would wheel himself to the corner where the main street and a major cross street for the local schools intersected. He would just sit and wave, all dressed up in a suit, hat, and dress shoes. When a corresponding holiday arrived, he waved a little flag, bunny, heart, or Santa. Everyone knew him as the waving little old man. Although not a child, he in fact was remembered by all the children he waved to. When he passed, school children placed toys, flags, and cards on his corner. He brought us joy by being his mission. You may not know a person on a personal level, but often the impact you have on others makes a lasting impression. RIP, orange cat and waving little old man.
Ick,
I cannot image craving human contact like that. But then again, I never thought I’d have a cat either. I doubt I’ll ever be the waving guy, but at the same time, there’s other ways to affect people’s lives but with invisibility.