A tribute to a best friend who loved to eat.

The big cat named Cosmos loved to hunt in his garden.

He loved to lay in his garden.

He loved to roll in the patch of sun-bleached dirt he arranged among the wood chips.

He loved sunbeams and new smells and belly rubs.

He loved to climb fences.

He loved to ambush his buddies from behind corners, with a little swipe to the back of the leg.

He loved to cuddle until his tongue lolled out involuntarily.

He loved to scale the ladder to the attic to lay and watch us draw on the wall.

He loved to join us on the roof to watch the sunset, or just sit in the sun.

He loved to tuck into the cradle of a knee for a deep sleep.

He loved to stay out all night too.

But more than all of it put together, he loved to eat. Man, he loved to eat.

Wet food. Dry food. Dog food. Wild gophers. Petrale sole. Roast chicken.

He once tried to eat his cat-food dinner while he still had a hummingbird in his mouth. (The hummingbird was rescued.)

On another occasion, he caught and ate a mouse in no more than 9 seconds, rodent bones cracking audibly as he went.

Sometimes he'd eat so lustily he'd ralph up his meal. Then he would eat that.

He weighed a good 15 pounds, at least.

He was vocal about his appetite too. He'd talk to you until you fed him breakfast, then eat it, and then wait until another housemate arose and he'd talk to them until he got breakfast number two.

Which was why his uneaten dinner was the first indicator something was wrong.

•••

It was a Saturday a half decade back when a Chinese exchange student and I ventured over to SPCA for Monterey County.

Annie had her heart set on an adorable calico kitten with a wiggly nose.

Compared to the 4-month-old tiger lookalike, it was the safer bet: When we brought the tiger out of the cage he was spastic, lunging around like a unbalanced top.

But he had those stripes. And, most importantly, when I walked by his cage, he reached his paw out through the space between the wires.

Still, I wasn’t sure taking on a pet was a smart move. I was hardly ever around. I’d never raised a pet by myself. So I drove away, catless. But I stopped short of the intersection of SPCA’s road and Highway 68 and called my dad.

“I don’t know what to do,” I told him.

He replied with a question: “Will he have a better life with you?”

•••

The garden wasn't much when Cosmos moved in. A few small plants, a transplanted bush, some juvenile fruit trees, an aspiring artichoke.

Over the duration of his reign, it grew into a backyard jungle. His backyard jungle.

When he took out the marauding gopher, the artichoke flourished, growing as tall as 5 feet.

On occasion he would chase hummingbirds and butterflies, to keep his skills sharp.

On other occasions he would track the resident jays, talking to them in an imitation of their own language.

He would lounge in the velvety bush of lamb's ear, and when he had love-smothered that to extinction, the clump of alstroemeria, or Peruvian lily, became his preferred cushion.

He’d crouch under the cape honeysuckle, or the orange tree, and occasionally scale the plum tree, but he liked the lily the best.

There’s still a crease in the lily bush where he would lay. And a more permanent one on the garden’s heart.

•••

Turns out there are some options when your best friend turns up dead.

After his dinner sat unattended for a day and a half, Cosmos’ favorite uncle/cat food concierge David Schmalz called Animal Control.

Kelly Ramsay, of Seaside Animal Control, said Cosmos had apparently suffered an injury, perhaps from a passing car, and crawled onto the neighbor’s porch and laid down to die. Peacefully, she told us.

Animal Control would send him to its state facility in Sacramento for a group cremation at no cost to us. Or send him back in a cedar urn for $197. Or, Ramsay said, she could turn Cosmos over to us.

Some quick research revealed it’s legal to bury your cat in your yard. 

That made it easy. Cos, who had only left the garden and its surrounding area once since he arrived—in the Animal Control truck—was going back to his happiest place on the planet.

So on a Wednesday lunch break I dug a deep grave beneath the cape honeysuckle, not far from the Peruvian lily.

•••

When I carried Cosmos from the Animal Control truck he was heavier than ever.

But still so soft.

Schmalz and I splashed some tears in the earth with him as I laid him down in there as gently as I could and covered him with cool clay soil.

I planted a shoot of his favorite bush to lounge in, that Peruvian lily, on top.

Next week we’ll plant one that blooms orange like him.

The animal control officer told me something as we took Cosmos back to his garden.

“I could tell he belonged to someone,” she said.

She was half right. We belonged to him too.

•••

I shouldn’t have been, but in the days following his death, I was surprised at how many of his friends were affected by his absence, and how many marveled at how well he lived.

One of them, herself an animal lover, sent me a poem from one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver. Its conclusion goes like this:

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Cosmos knew how to be idle, how to stroll through his fields.

No more than a few days after he returned to the garden permanently, something interesting happened in the cape honeysuckle over his grave: a swarm of honeybees clumped there, guarding their queen, searching for a new home.

They evoke the words of another poet I treasure, Rumi, who wrote, “Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

I don't know that I'll ever lose Cosmos.

He was too good a friend.

I know I'll never lose the lessons it seems animals best teach us about being human:

Ambush friends with love taps.

Honor your happy places.

Spend time in the garden.

Reach outside your cage.

And, yes, enjoy every meal like it's your last.