Robbie

This is an older memorial I would like to share.  Robert Frost, better known as Robbie to his friends and family, came into my life in June 2000, and passed away in July 2009.  But to memorialize Robbie, I have to bring you way back to the beginning of the story and why he was so special in my life.

When I was about 10 years old (circa 1983), I was helping my mother bring our two cats to the vet.  They were, as most cats are, in their cat kennels and we were sitting in the waiting room waiting for them to be called back.  In walked a man, wearing a trench coat, and a beautiful tiger cat just draped around his shoulders.  That cat didn’t seem to have a care in the world and he and his owner seemed to move as one.  I leaned over and said to my mom “I wish one of our cats would sit on my shoulders like that!”.  Needless to say, neither of our cats did — and I had never known another cat and owner combo like that.

Fast forward to the spring of 2000.  I was graduating graduate school in New Orleans, was planning to move to New York and needed to find a place to live.  Like any great NYC apartment story — especially back then — I found a sublet from the most likely of sources:  My then girlfriend’s best friend’s brother’s friend new a woman who mostly lived in Guam and was looking to sublet her place on the Upper West Side.  It was $1300 a month (a steal even then for a 1 BR) and there was only one thing unique about the sublet:  It came with taking care of her two cats, Robbie and Pele.  I had not been looking for a cat, let alone two, but the price and location of the apt was right — so…why not!

It’s June 2000, I have just graduated from my MBA program at Tulane and my cousin and I are driving a U-Haul to New York.  We get to the apartment in the late afternoon and before we begin to unload, we go upstairs to check it out and meet the cats.  I open the door — Pele (a black cat) bolts around the corner to flee from us — and there standing by the door is Robbie…he walks over to me, puts his paws on my leg, I bend down to pick him up…

And he immediate wraps himself around my shoulders and settles in.

Needless to say, It was love at first sight between me and Robbie.  He loved to lay on my shoulders all the time – especially when I was cooking in the kitchen for some reason.  Robbie also loved to curl up around my head on my pillow at night — which I loved, but he was a bit of a shedder :). Eventually, Robbie & Pele’s owner (who came to visit periodically and would stay with me) realized the bond we had and offered to let me keep them both — which I accepted without hesitation.

Robbie was my constant companion through those years.  He was with me during a really tough break-up, after 9/11 in NYC, and when I met my now-wife of 22 years.  Sadly, for work, in 2006, we were going to be moving overseas a lot — and at the time — the idea of moving with animals seemed overwhelming.  I was able to find a home for Robbie with a dear friend in NYC who also loved him dearly — and she took care of him till the day he died in 2009.  Robbie as able to die at home, peacefully, and surrounded with much love.

I know how well he was cared for — but I still deeply regret the decision to not bring him with us when we moved in 2006.  Because I missed him so.  But he was loved to the end — and that is all you can ever ask for.

He was a one of a kind — and he made my ten year old dreams come true.