Henry Miller Remembered…a Note for a Fallen Feline Friend

Cats are the only animals that are domesticable but not controllable. That is, dogs, horses, these animals can be trained to do our bidding. Lizards, tigers, bears will always be wild and only really stay with us and obey us if we keep them caged and restrained. Cats will become pets, return to our homes and show us love.  But now amount of breeding could create a cat who would pull a plow.

And it doesn’t matter because cats are hunters, first and foremost. We’ve turned them into housepets, kept them locked up and perhaps that is for their own protection but nothing can make them be anything other than a swift, independent hunter. Such was Henry Miller.

Bec brought him home with 3 other kittens that had been marked for death at the South Central shelter. But these three had breathing problems, see, and so were quarantined, and that was where the lady found them and rescued them and dropped them off at the animal hospital where Bec worked. Their sickness saved them from death. And from there they came to live with us, at least until we could find them homes.

There was Edgar, the gray, morose one.Fat Kerouac, the grandiose and standoffish, almost surly girl. And the loveable pervert we named Henry Miller.

Henry Miller had big eyes. As if he was born wide awake and wished never to be otherwise. And with those big eyes he stared at me. Deeply. Curiously. Affectionately.

We didn't want a cat. We wanted to downsize. We love animals but with eyes on an ever-changing horizon, we felt like lightness would be the key. Dogs are tough to move long distances with. Cats near-impossible. And yet... and yet Henry chose me.

And Cecile, our dog, he chose her too.

They wrestled. When I had shoulder surgery, I spent my two weeks' recovery with the new kitten and young little dog wrestling on my lap as I read LONESOME DOVE and GENERATION OF SWINE and watched movie after movie.

Henry Miller, like all cats, was a great writing partner, when I could write

again. He would sit on the desk and stare or sit in my lap and curl up as if to say "No matter your prose, your lap is warm and that is good enough."

Cats are much better writing partners than dogs. And reading partners, for that matter.

Henry Miller spoke with a French accent. And in L.A. we thought him a bit of a dandy.

He never went outside the gate into crack-addled Hollywood. Once I built him his 6-foot tree he would spend whole weekends up there when strange dogs entered our house.

He wasn't an asshole like every other cat. He would ask for food but not violently. He waited patiently for breakfast, especially if we needed to sleep it off. He wanted nothing but to be part of our family. And stretches.

His favorite thing to do was stretch. Becca or I would grab him under his front arm pits and he would stretch his paws out, arching his neck up, eyes closed, getting loose and limber.

Just one thing we had in common.

He liked to sit with me when I wrote. 

He liked to jump around, to climb. That cat tree was the one thing I built of which I was most proud, partially because of how much he got out of the climb, jump, spin it took to the crow's nest.

He didn't bite or scratch our friends, our family, anybody. He was kind to people.

He put up with the stupid things people do to animals they love, like putting Santa hats on them.

 

A few months after moving to Jackson, we found out he was beating up the neighborhood cats. Especially one whose owners said he was usually the bully. Henry brought us dead mice a few times. We thought he was just a soft house cat. But in Wyoming he thrived. He became the king of our street and a stud of a mouser. We even shaved him into a lion. Partially because of all the burrs but still ...

He was a lion, goddammit. A proud, strong, graceful, beautiful big-hearted fucking lion.

Maybe it was because he was Cecile's little brother from the second he met her. She wrestled with him. Toughened him up. Cuddled him. Antagonized him. So soon he thought he was a dog. Could wrestle like a dog. Even with dogs. He was Cecile's best friend, no doubt. They were young together. 

 They were supposed to grow old together.

 She seems to be older since he died. She spends more of her day sleeping. Seems to have gotten morose. Disenchanted and bitter. As if she's realized that you can lose best companions like that. Even ones that were so damn tough. And goddamn was he tough.

But he was still good in a lap. He was still the cat that people who didn't

like cats liked. He was still the cat that people who liked cats loved. He was a magic cat, that's for damn sure.

He was a once-in-a-lifetime cat. The most even-headed, calm, friendly (but not overly-so) and, by the end, badass cat Becca and I have ever known. And she's known hundreds of cats.

He was all-around good. Strong. Loving but not suffocating. A part of the family but not needy like a dog. Kind to his brood, tough to his enemies. With good balance. Good sense. Good heart. Good strength. And a great hunter's instinct.

Though he did not move well. That is, when we threw him in a cat carrier for the 900-mile drive from L.A. to Jackson he mewed the whole time. He screamed from the hotel room where we tried to leave him in Ogden while we took the dogs out. 

But his first moment in snow — stepping out and sinking in, up to his chest, staring at us with eyes wide and hair prickled — that was priceless.

Henry Miller was supposed to grow up with my son Jackson. He was supposed to send little Jackie Boy off to college. 

He was tough but kind. Outgoing but not annoying. He was like the star athlete who gets straight A's and beats up the high school bullies for picking on the geeks. 

To people who say he died because we let him out, who believe the thing to do with cats is lock them up inside or put them on harnesses, I say why not get a turtle? What good is a life spent imprisoned. Henry loved the outdoors. He was too energetic, too carefree, too much of a lover of the wild and the night air and the hunt and the grass and the trees to ever be tortured by forcing hi to stay inside. His death could've maybe been avoided. But he probably woulda hated his life.

He was trying to get home. That's the best we could discern when I got the call from the cop who said he saw Hen in the jaws of a neighborhood dog in the field behind our house. He had been scared, either from the dog or a car or something. Maybe the dog shook him to death. Maybe a car hit him. Either way, this beautiful cat, so full of life and love and skill and heart, this cat who cat-haters loved, was frozen and stank of piss with a hideous expression he never made and some dried blood out of his nose and his tongue out his mouth.

I've seen plenty of animals die. But his was a tragedy. He was young. And he was the best goddamn cat I've ever known. Becca has known hundreds, maybe thousands of cats if you include her job. Even had a cat she loved for a long time, Oscar. And she admitted Henry was the best cat she's ever known.

The other day, Becca saw a mouse in the house. This is when they come around, in the fall. This would've been what he'd been growing towards all summer.

It's just such a goddamn shame.

We'll always remember you, you eternally-happy, forever effervescent, bright-eyed little bastard.

Henry Miller, May 2011-August 29, 2013

Love,

Ryan and Becca

Happy Labor Day - Until It lasts no longer

Labor Day, yes, a holiday pushed through legislation after US Military and police opened fire on unionized strikers during the Pullman strike. This arms blunder in fact opened the door for a sweeping change of labor in the U.S. and now we memorialize it with barbeques, heavy drinking, pools, sun-tanning, banning of white shoes, staycations, last weekends, so on.

In Wisconsin, where the Republicans have all but banned the labor unions, Labor Day takes on a whole new  meaning, elevating it to battleground. And it should. This is just another example of our country forgetting what made it great in the first place.

Ayn Rand hated the labor unions too and in her sprawling, bloated, at-times-beautiful but more often just silly opus ATLAS SHRUGGED she says that the workers wouldn’t have jobs without the hardworking men at the top. And sure, that’s true. But it’s a symbiotic relationship. Without owners to run the business, there could be no jobs, right? Owner needs the workers or else who will run their furnaces and electrical lines? Who will exchange their work for less money than it’s worth? And yes, owners can get anybody to do their work. But then you’re left with factories in China poisoning our children’s toys or factories in Mexico churning out disenfranchised workers who run across the border to the U.S. where the same people who own those factories complain about the illegal immigrant problem.

And finally, we are left with life the way it currently is – our greatest minds have dedicated themselves to computer works or to middle-man industries – finance, import/export, development – without any thought to the fact that their willingness to move factories overseas in some sort of owner’s strike is taking us from being producer to being middle man and consumer.

So with Labor Day over and all of our minds fighting the hangovers from our fun weekends in the sun, we need to turn our eyes to the future. Stock market’s dying. American manufacturing is at an all-time low. And politicians are caving to special corporate interests at an alarming rate (Wisconsin outlawing unions, Obama lifting smog restrictions and naming GE, a massive multinational that got a tax refund greater than the GDP of some small African countries, to a cush corporate government post) which leave more of the work on the laborer and less on the men at the top while said topliners get the privileges. Which will only last until the middle class is completely gone and no longer consumes. And the lower class goes elsewhere for better opportunity. And leaves America the hollow shell of what it once was.

Happy Labor Day. While it lasts.

Princess Annie, You Will Be Missed

“Dogs live too short a time for all the love they bestow upon us.” – Jose Saramago, Nobel Laureate

Annie was born first, at least in our pack. She was a border-collie lab and we called her The Otter sometimes because she looked like one, black and sleek with a tendency to bob her head from side to side like an otter swimming whenever she got excited. That was how she said hello. Annie was the youngest soul ever born into this Earth so she was bursting with energy and smart but nervous, never fully comfortable but at times sublimely happy.

We also called her Annie Tang, Annabelle, Anakin. Her theme song was “Isn’t She Lovely” and the theme to Miss America. And “Mandy” with “Mandy” replaced by “Annie”.

She started sheepherding at12,with dogs half her age and ran with the best of them. She was a natural. People couldn’t believe her age.

People couldn’t believe her age two weeks ago, before the tumor had gotten too big for her to act herself. 2 weeks ago she still ran like a puppy, still got so excited, still acted like every day was a blessed new gift even if she had already passed 14 years’ worth of days under her collar and for anybody else it would be just another day.

Annie’s life, at least as Becca knew it, began when she was less than a year, eating trash from the dumpster behind a Baltimore Police station. The SPCA had sentenced her to death a few days later. She was a mangy and worm-ridden, street urchin. Nobody wanted her. Becca saw the wretch huddled in a corner with a bloated stomach and gnarled hair and looked into her eyes. They were deep and brown and full of emotion, fear mostly, and sparkled, too. Annie’s eyes belied a deep soul. Becca couldn’t let her die. Bec’s seen thousands of dogs over her life and this was the only one who looked at her like that. Becca always said Annie was the best 35 bucks she ever spent.

Annie was a destroyer. She had separation anxiety. She tore up Becca’s room. Becca was trying to hide Annie since she lived with her Mom and her new Stepdad who didn’t want a dog. Once Annie’s destructiveness made it impossible to hide her Becca moved out.

Annie tore apart her apartment when Becca left her alone at her new place. She tore Becca’s friend Lindsay’s baby ballet slippers. She destroyed clothes, remotes, walls, couches. She had to be crated for 4 years, all because for whatever reason she never believed Becca would be coming back. She didn’t realize how special she was.

Annie was a perfect dog. She liked her crate long after her destructiveness passed and she realized that Becca would never leave her. If people weren’t there she would crawl inside the crate and take a nap. She came when you called her and went when you pointed. She ran alongside you without fail. She was the dog that all of our friends always looked to when they talked about perfect dogs.

Becca took Annie to college parties and hiking on the Appalachian Trail.  Annie loved parties. She was the center of attention. She’d shake her tail and wiggle her head and everybody would bend over to pet her and tell her how good of a dog she was and she’d give them kisses. Annie was there when Becca came home after too much fun. And the next morning when Bec was suffering memory loss and a deathly headache and nausea. When Becca cried about men or friends or family. Annie never judged her, never felt anything but love and support for her mom. Annie’s fur was made shiny by Becca’s tears. Annie would always be the best person to confess too because she always forgave you, no matter how much of a drunken scene you mighta made.

Annie met Becca’s Dad the last time Becca saw him outside the hospital bed where he passed away. She went hiking with Becca and Becca’s Dad. Becca’s Dad said how good a dog Annie was. Annie shook her head from side to side and swam up to him and gave him a kiss. She gave the best soft kisses, like a wet sliver of silk.

Annie didn’t kiss anybody the last week of her life. It was her way of telling us she didn’t feel good anymore. Or maybe it was just self-consciousness about how she smelled. Annie could be a nervous princess sometimes, especially when it came to being a proper, beautiful lady.

Annie was beautiful. She was the most beautiful lady in the world.

While Becca hiked with a boy Annie hiked with the boy’s Dog, Russ. Annie loved Russ. Russ was a coward. Annie was tough. Annie had fought a pitbull twice her size once. She never stopped fighting it, even when its jaws were chomping down hard on her head. She never backed down, never showed fear. Though after the incident she did drop a small turd. She was so embarrassed about that.

So Annie loved Russ, even if he was a coward. And when Becca moved in with the boy Annie moved in with Russ. Annie missed Russ when it didn’t work out. Becca still took them for walks but it wasn’t the same. Annie wanted a partner to share beds with, to spend every minute together with. Preferably it was a boy – Annie was a princess and like a princess, she didn’t want no other bitches getting’ in on her territory.

Annie’s still a princess. She's still my princess. She liked it when I carried her up the steps, or down the beach trail, or back from the park, at least the last week when her legs no longer had strength. That was the only sign of the cancer that she ever let on and it befit a princess to have a big strong boy carrying her everywhere.

Annie got nervous when she wasn’t getting much attention. When she got nervous she started licking her paws, sometimes raw.

When she slept she whimpered and kicked the air, chasing imaginary sheep, going to work.

She loved working. She was a herder and she always herded the dogs in whatever pack she was running with. When we got Steven, she especially liked herding him. We would run out, her and I, and cut off his angles, working together, get him into a corner, she’d nudge him with her nose, I’d swoop in from his flank, and we’d pin down that wily little rat.

I’d never seen her so excited and fulfilled as when we took her to Drummond Ranch to herd sheep. She bowled me over. She’d start getting excited when the car careened into Antelope Valley. When we pulled into the lot she jumped out of the car, foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal, pulling on her leash like an addict looking for a fix until it was her turn in the herding ring and then she’d chase those sheep until her tongue was bloody and white from exhaustion. She was a natural, they said. Nobody could believe how old she was or that she was just starting to herd. The instincts were in her and she wasn’t afraid to go head to head with a ram if she needed to. Toughness is something that can’t be taught, no matter what age. One of our biggest regrets is that she didn’t live long enough for us to get her a farm with her own sheep.

When I first met Annie I was there to seduce her mom. She took out all of her toys and lined them up in front of me. Becca told me Annie was nervous about having a new boy in the house. I got along with Annie from the start.

I’ve only known Becca for a month without Annie. We were touring the country together selling surf videos and Annie was staying with my parents where she was spoiled and got fat off of comfort food. Then we drove cross-country, Annie and Becca and I.

Annie was the perfect passenger. She didn’t complain about the small space we carved out for her in the back of the VW. She went to the bathroom when we got out at rest stops and gas stations. She stared at cows as if she’d never realized such a thing existed. She ate Sonic burgers and McDonald’s and Burger King, everything we ate.

She saw the Grand Canyon. She threw up in the car on the night that we pulled into Grand Canyon Park. She’d announced she was about to throw up and I caught it with a towel. The next day she ate a Sausage McMuffin for breakfast.

She and I had our first real run together up the Spanish Gold Trail in Southwestern Colorado. She exploded uphill over logs and sticks in a sprint. She could’ve run forever at full stride. It was Annie at her prime and there was never anything so beautiful or graceful as that.

Becca used to take her for 12-mile runs through Loch Raven, through Robert E. Lee, all over Maryland. When Becca was going through a hard break-up, her hardest, Annie was there to cry with her and run with her and anything Becca needed. She never tired of either. Her endurance was unmatchable.

The last day of our drive we crossed the desert together, the three of us, and Annie and I became family. I remember the exact moment. We were somewhere in the middle of Death Valley with the AC blaring. Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Road Trippin’” came on. Bec and I were puffing. Annie stuck her muzzle up front to partake. It was me and my two favorite allies. Getting lost anywhere in the USA. Watching the sun as it sank over the desert horizon.

Annie was my dream girl. When we moved to Newport she learned to surf. She loved chasing the stick, always had, but what she loved most then was when we’d throw it out into the shorebreak. She’d swim, grab the stick in her mouth, and turning back to the shore catch a small wave in. Becca tried surfing twice and hated it. Annie was my surfer girl.

Annie was my skater girl too. I’d jump on my board in the smooth back-alleys of the Newport Peninsula behind our house and she’d take off, pulling me at top speed through a cool crisp Orange County beach night under a bright moon and swaying palm trees and multi-million dollar condos. She’d made it, the OC at its height, yes, the perfect place for a surfer / skater princess.

She loved the beach, loved the sand, love going for long walks and watching the sun set from the lifeguard stands. But what she loved most were sunny days in the grass.

She loved running into the middle of a grassy field or a yard, even a patch next to the sidewalk, and if the sun hit it well enough and the grass was lush and crisp she would drop her shoulder and follow it onto her back, rolling back and forth in the sun and the grass itching her back. I once told a friend I’d never seen anybody so happy as Annie was when she rolled over on her back like that.

Last week she found a good grass spot. She dropped her shoulder and followed it but couldn’t get onto her back. She was too weak. The tumor had pushed everything too far apart, put too much pressure on her stomach and liver and her muscles. She stopped and lay on her side for a beat. Then she stood back up. She would never be able to roll in the grass again.

Annie’s story wouldn’t be complete without Bronco. Bronco was Annie’s soulmate. When we first brought the big, sun-beaten wolf-dog home Annie immediately opened up her heart to him. He was nervous of people. He’d been running along the I-5. Annie showed him these people were good. We’d take them on the trail and Annie wanted to play, would charge at him and try and tackle him even though he was much bigger. He didn’t like to play, at least not at first. But she wore him down. I got fired and enjoyed the best 8 months of my life. Everyday I’d take them on a few-mile long run down our Cliffside trail above the ocean. Annie liked to sprint ahead, then when Bronco came towards her she’d herd him into the bushes or the edge, sometimes even by diving at his feet and taking on all 65 pounds of him to her 40. He was distrustful for a long time. Soon he learned to trust Annie. And through Annie he learned to trust us. And he fell in love and was hers, forever and truly.

Bronco became Annie’s protector and companion. They would share beds and couches. Bronco was relatively peaceable on his own but when Annie started barking at another dog, picking a fight as she did from time to time (she is a Princess, after all) he would be quick to put the other dog down with gnashing of tough malamute fangs. She’d start the fights but he’d finish them, much to our concern but her apparent delight. Sure, sometimes she could be a bitch.

But she was also a mom. When Becca first had her kitten Rosie, Annie would lay on her side and let Rosie suckle. It didn’t seem to matter to Annie or Rosie that Annie was spayed and couldn’t lactate, no, it was just the closeness of mother and daughter.

Annie was always the den mother. Always taking care of whatever injured dogs were staying with Becca, and later Becca and me. Always taking whatever kittens we were boarding – or birthing – under her wing. She would keep them all in line. She would protect the kittens from anybody she didn’t trust, which included Steve at times. Which was strange because Steve is her greatest achievement of all.

Steven aka Steve aka Stevie Scamortz aka the Rat Dog was born Oxygen deprived. Becca brought him home even though I didn’t want any more pets. Stevie couldn’t be crated without covering himself, the crate, and anything reachable through the bars with shit. But when he was let out he would chew anything within reach. He couldn’t walk on the leash. He didn’t respond to anything. He stared at us as if he had no idea who were, even after a few months. He was an all-around bad, dumb dog.

But Annie started with bumping him in the butt to get him walking. She snapped at him when he was jumping around the house like a circus monkey on crack. When we went out running she ran step for step with him, even though he was 12 years younger than her. She herded him to the edges, the bushes. She outran and outsmarted him. When he tried to wrestle Bronco, Bronco snapped at him. When he tried to wrestle Annie she wrestled back, taught him how to do it right, how to run, how to pounce, how to obey the masters. She taught him to know his role. They would play tug of war with sticks, toys, anything that could be pulled and she usually won. I don’t think she ever would have admitted it because he could be annoying but she liked the little puppy. She was his example and role model. Every day he acts more and more like a real, thinking dog. He listens. He runs but comes back. She’s responsible for that.

I gave Annie a stuffed bunny last week, just after she had her chest drained for the first time and we found out she had terminal cancer. She walked around for 2 days with it firmly in her mouth. Stevie tried to get it but she growled, refused, played tug of war. Bronco would jump up and block Stevie out, growl at him, Annie’s bouncer. Bronco became real protective of Annie last week. Actually the last 2 weeks. When the cancer started growing inside her. He knew before any of us.

This will be tough on Bronco. She’s the princess who plucked the street thug up and gave him a life of love, comfort, food, family. She was his charge. He would protect her to his death. He couldn’t protect her from cancer. This is going to be really tough on him.

It’ll be tough on all of us. We all had our roles in the family. Hers, though, was the most important. The nurturer. The one everybody loved and who loved everybody. The glue, the mother and the partner and the best friend and the only daughter. The dog who made people who didn’t like dogs smile. The one with the most energy and the most brains, the one with the most love and the best smile. The best heart.

She liked dressing up. She liked going to parties. She liked attention. No, loved attention.

When my friend Luke came out to visit she cuddled with him on his air mattress all night. She did that with every guy who stayed at our house (sorry Luke). She loved boys. She harbored secret dreams of running away with me, though she’d never act on them. She loved Becca too much. Becca and her shared a heart and a soul. This will be very tough on Becca. It’s hard to live on without a part of your heart and soul.

Annie hadn’t eaten for almost a week when we finally let her rest. The tumor pushed on her stomach, made it impossible to digest anything. That made her weaker but she still would run, just not as much or as long. She still hopped. A few people who loved her came over and she was the perfect host, snuggling with everybody, letting everyone scratch her, loving the attention. She kissed me and Becca each once, even though she felt horrible. She didn’t want anybody to feel bad for her. She was in horrible pain and starving and weak but through it all she kept a strong, stoic expression. She even smiled a few times. She would’ve held on longer if we made her. She would’ve held on until her body shut down, until the cancer and all its unbearable pains tore her apart. We loved her too much ask that of her.

She was never completely the same after Oscar went. None of us were but he was her brother. He’d been there ever since Annie first came home as a mess of a destructor. She was the only dog he ever liked. She kissed him and he let her, albeit with a disgruntled expression. Sometimes he’d even kiss her.

We told her he was waiting for her. He was making sure a big meal was ready for her, that he had a smoke and a small glass of champagne (since we all know princesses drink nothing else). Oscar and Annie are together now, catching up, playing together, just the two of them like long ago.

Oscar and Annie were there for Becca through tough times. They were her rock. Annie was her strength. Annie’s name is on Becca’s arm forever as a sign of the strength Annie gave her.

They stuck around mostly for her. To make sure she was taken care of, that she would be okay. They waited until she was married, had a husband who loved her, who loved them, sure, but mostly they wanted to make sure he loved her. I love her. I loved Annie. And I loved Oscar. I love Annie. And I love Oscar.

I wonder if that’s why they both went so fast. I officially adopted them when I married their mother. But they didn’t even make it a year as an Ariano. I wonder if that was all they were waiting for and when they knew I’d be around to take care of her, to help her through the tough times that would follow their passing they let themselves go into the great beyond. I’ve been a part of Annie’s life for 7 years. That’s the greatest gift I ever got from Becca. And she never aged a day until the last week. Then it caught up to her.

Annie was a mark of happiness, free of all the clutter and garbage that Becca and I have found with so many of the people we meet in this life. She was pure and perfect.

Anybody who says I’m giving a dog too much credit is right. She wasn’t just a dog. She was a part of our family, a daughter, someone who was always there no matter how dumb we’d been, how much of asses we’d made of ourselves, no matter what we were putting into our bodies or how loud and sloppy we could get at times. Her love was unconditional and endless, like her endurance and her heart, like her memory will be. She never lied, never betrayed, never let us down. I can’t say that of many people. She was better than people.  She was Annie.

We wanted to see her play with our kids someday – she would’ve been a great nanny. We wanted to give her sheep and a farm and the whole world. We couldn’t give it to her and it’s the saddest part of the whole tragedy.

But we gave her a house with her own yard and she defended it and rolled in it and joined us in the kiddy pool when we got it out and loved sitting on the porch when I read or lying among the flowers while I did yard work.

She went to Griffith Park and Elysian Park and Franklin Canyon. For the last 2 years she went to Nichols Canyon a couple times a week. She loved Nichols, running with Stevie as he got faster and faster. She loved the view of the Ocean beyond the sprawling city. She’ll always love Nichols Canyon.

She got to hike parts of both the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail. She drove cross-country, walked on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and rode in the back of my truck as we wound through Big Sur. She went to Mammoth and was there when I proposed to Becca – she was part of the proposal, I put a little scroll on her collar and told Bec to call her. I couldn't have imagined doing it any other way.

She taught Bronco the savage and Stevie the rat to be real dogs. She came face to face with a 1-ton Sea Lion in Laguna Cove – she loved that cove with the smell of fish and anemones all around. She followed me over precarious rocks on hikes and leapt over chasms in the coral in the cove, places that Becca didn’t dare to tread. She would’ve followed either of us anywhere, even to hell and back if we asked her to. Again, she was my dream girl, never scared to push for the frightening spots.

Annie was a princess, a beautiful lady, an adventurer and a socialite, a mom and a wife and a daughter, a funny girl and the straight lady. She was my muse, a title character in one book and a main character in another. In both books I kept her name Annie because, well, Annie was the perfect name for her. She was perfect.

She touched the hearts of everybody she met. She cheered us all at one time or another when we were despondent, hopeless, we’d never find happiness again. She radiated it.

And now she’s gone.

Annie, you will be missed. I hope you don’t know how much because you wouldn’t like to hear that you caused any of us even an ounce of pain.

Annie loved life, loved it like nobody I’ve ever known. And we loved her.

We will miss you always. Tell Oscar we say hello and to keep out of trouble. Put the good word in with the big guy for us sinners. And just know that we love you more than we ever thought possible and will never forget you.