20 July 2008 Alex loved the garden

We buried Alex today near the vegetable garden and under the birch trees she used to sit below. I designed the memorial marker, Paul built it, and I finished it. It's more of a shrine than a memorial, I suppose, with the trinkets and photograph. We did have a brief ceremony, ending with a Guiness toast and a sprinkling of the brew on the fresh dirt. She liked Guiness and I could never set a glass of it down lower than the counter if she was near.

That's one of her dishes underneath, next to a piece from the ceramic bird bath she used to drink from in the garden. I left it out too late into the fall last year and it broke when the water froze. I'm not a superstitious person but that incident did make me wonder if Alex would live to another summer. Hanging near the dish is a yarn 'Eye of God' that I made at a Quaker retreat one month after her death. I was thinking about her quite a bit that weekend. I like to think that she's moved on to another plane where she's keeping somebody's lap warm and licking their eyebrows.


The little kitty is a goofy statue covered in tiny shells. I picked it up from a free table because it made me smile. I tried to give it to a friend who was going through a rough break-up at the time, but she didn't appreciate it and it ended up back with me. Alex made me smile, too, so there the two kitties are together. The shell kitty is wearing Alex's last collar. I found the red heart recently at a gift shop and placed it there for all the obvious reasons.


I planted nepeta (cat mint) at the base. I wouldn't mind seeing one of the neighbor cats drinking from the bowl and rubbing the nepeta. The garden seems so lonely.