The saddest thing

I've talked a lot, and written often, about how fortunate I've been in the last few years to have met some really wonderful, amazing people and gotten to know them well and come to be friends and count on them for things that I never knew a person could share with another person. One of those people for me is J.R. This morning I read J.R.'s blog, as I always do, when I got to work. It's what I do after I turn the water on for tea. Today I read, as did all of her friends, that her cat C. died.

I met J.R. at the NILS Cataloging Committee meetings. She was, at the time, the Technical Services Librarian at the College, and the chair of the committee. I'd been the head of my department for a while but we'd only recently joined the NILS consortium (long story) so I hadn't been expected to go to the meetings before. Because she was so young when she earned her MLS and got her first "real job", I was intimidated and expected her to be really snippy about protocol and her expectations for my [professional] behavior. It took no time at all for her to put me at ease, though, and to make me realize that her knowledge and experience lent her a grace that I honestly envied. She's not power-hungry, but effective and intelligent. And, over time, she became a real, valued, trusted friend.

And now she lives in New York, which is too far away from where I am but where she wants to be. Her job title is Coordinator at a SUNY school. We communicate often about reading, and I think she's the only person I know who actually reads more than I do. I think that we are also both, elementally, "cat people". She's lived with C. for a long time. She (C.) seemed sick last night, and died at the vet's this morning. It was obviously a very sudden thing, and horribly sad.

And I wish I could do something other than be sad. I wish there was some way to convey to the people I work with that I don't want to talk today, or smile, or do anything other than think about my friends and the people I love (and the cats that I love, and the cats that I've loved and lost). I wish there was some way to tell anyone who doesn't know her why this means so much, and why it's so sad, and why this is something that should make anyone stop for a minute and be aware of what there is to lose. Is that pessimistic, or is it realistic? I don't think I care what it's called. Maybe it'll help me remember what's important and be less aware of what's not.