Our street cat, Tiger, died today, or a few days ago.
We don’t really know. My wife and son noticed him lying unmoving in the front outdoor entrance of our townhome neighbor’s house. The neighborhood ladies gathered in front of the house. They were unsure of what to do.
There was a dead cat in front of the door.
To me, Tiger was a friend. He was part of a litter of street cats in our neighborhood. After about four years, the only two remaining cats were him and his brother, Ninja. Seven townhome owners cared for him bit by bit over the years with love and food.
Ninja had disappeared a year ago. We haven’t seen him since.
In the mornings, Tiger would meowl at me in what I had initially thought were pleas for food and water, but as the years passed with each morning greeting, I realized that this cat was an extremely sensitive and intelligent creature.
He just wanted some love.
Occasionally, regardless of my fear of feral bacteria transferring to my kids, I would hold him. He’d sit on my lap and purr. It would sometimes dawn on me that I was the only person in the world who would do this for him.
You see, in Thailand, it’s special here. People value all forms of life and see it as sacred.
I had planned on using an empty trash bag to pick him up and place him inside of a computer tower box. Somewhat bewildered, I really had no other plan. Teaching the boys about death this early on, with it right in their face…I wasn’t really ready for it with Tiger’s lifeless form before my eyes, or the growing musty odor filling my nostrils.
Tiger had been very cuddly and soft; his body today was stiff and alien to the touch. I lifted his a-bit-too-heavy-stuffed-animal-feeling remains. It didn’t bend correctly into the overly large box, and moving him was still very awkward with his tail and prone body.
I left him in the box on the corner of the hot street and then went back to my family.
We decided that it’d be best to move him by motorcycle to the temple.
I donned my hat, mustered up the courage to participate in yet another funeral in my life, and called a motorcycle taxi.
As the driver arrived, I walked to the box containing my old friend. I signalled to the driver to pick me up as I snagged the box. Our destination was a temple school over by On Nut 35, the only place I knew in this area where there’d be a person who would know what to do with his remains.
Curious, the driver kept looking at the box. Schrödinger be damned.
In my broken Thai, I explained to the driver that the box contained a dead cat. “He lived in this area. He was my friend.”
As we drove along, the driver aligned his own cultural upbringing on the sanctity of life with these events, a random driver working a day in his life on one of the busiest holidays in Thailand. He grew silent as he pondered life…for a barely loved street cat.
He suggested another temple. I agreed antipically. I trusted him and well, where this day was headed.
We veered off and turned into a small temple. A monk at the gate sat observing life during this Thai New Year of Songkran. The driver, in a greater scope of Thai, explained what we wanted to do. Meeting this gentleman and sharing two sentences about my dead friend started something intangible.
The monk then directed us through the temple grounds to the offices near the cremation furnace.
In the morning light of Bangkok, a monk, a facilitator, myself, and the driver all stood in a metropolitan river-temple discussing the finer nuances of a feline memorial service. Men who had never met before in this life.
There was a solemnity to being told the cremation costs 1,500 THB, with a 100 THB charge for something I didn’t catch. Grateful to the driver for his help, he was included in the monetary exchanges necessary to cremate a cat.
I was asked if I wanted the monks to chant for Tiger’s spirit. I was also asked if I wanted to observe or accompany the proceedings. I declined. I hopped on the back of the motorcycle and patted the box with a “Good luck, friend. Thank you for the love.”
The driver and I were simultaneously but separately deep in thought as we drove out of the temple. He pointed to mausoleums and structures for the dead, pointing out they were all dead too. I replied, “She-weet bai lui lui,” my broken translation of “Life goes on.”
You’ll be missed, Tiger. Thank you for teaching me. I knew your life and love would be short the day our neighbor told us you had had cancer. I chose to give you as much love and care as I could, while caring for those in my home and life. That’s the best we can do, and then finalize stuff in the most proper way possible in the wake of things.
