Get ready, mi gente. This is going to be a sob story, so if you’re not feeling like reading one of those, move along. Today’s is probably the saddest song I have ever heard: Time by the Alan Parsons Project from 1981. Never knowing how utterly prophetic this song would become, I was obsessed with it during its airwave release, which coincided with the end of life and eventual death of my beloved family pet, Cheri Amour. Cheri and I grew up together. I barely remember my father bringing her home for us, but I do remember the stories of how small she was and how she fit in the palm of his hand. In Lynbrook she’d been the family pet, but once we’d moved to the woods in ’79, she became mine; my best friend, my sleeping buddy, my only confidante in a lonely wood-paneled room. She had gone blind just before then so my empathy muscles, which most people don’t develop until much later (and some not at all), sharpened and I spent a lot of time coaching her around the house so she wouldn’t hurt herself. We became inseparable except for the hours when I was off at school; according to stories told by my mother, Cheri would hear the theme song for General Hospital at 3pm, perk her head up, and immediately dart, blindly but with precision, to park her little grey butt just a few inches from the front door, eagerly awaiting my impending arrival home at which time excessive tail-wagging would commence and she would become my shadow wherever in the house I’d roam. Cheri became very ill that year, 1981, and it was decided that she needed to be “put to sleep.” Yes, that’s what they called it, and maybe even still do. I remember quite vividly begging to go with my father and brother Carmine to the vet to be with her for her last moments, but I was denied. Instead I held her one last time and sang this song to her through tears, handed her to Carmine and recoiled to my bedroom for pretty much the remainder of that summer. Little did I know that that loss would still never prepare me for the inevitable onslaught: dad, best friend, sister-in-law, godmother, best friend, mom, godfather, sister, best friend, mother-in-law, brother, sister-in-law… endless, inevitable onslaught. And I’m in no way looking forward to losing my current shadow, Little Frankie, but I guess we’ll cross that rainbow bridge when we get to it.
From the historical writing archive. Original date: December 12, 2019. Recovered from local source material; editorial review is still in progress.
