Gabriella Opaz

This is a question that’s been gnawing at me for quite some time, and to be honest, I’m no closer to the answer now than I was 5 years ago. I keep thinking that life will throw me a bone, a clue-stick to know when someone is screaming “help” behind the “I’m fine” one liner, but either I’m not listening, or I’m simply not picking up the signs.

Let me give you an example how this can go down. My furry feline named Maestro came into my life back in 2002 when I moved into a large brownstone in Minneapolis. I lived on the first floor, behind a dive bar named Liquor Lyles, perfectly situated for me to catch my evening soap operas when drunk couples started their daily screaming matches when stumbling out the bar’s heavy wooden back entrance. These were my absolute favorite nights, typically enjoyed with my two cats sitting idly on the windowsill, while I enjoyed a glass of my body relaxed on a chair with my feet out the window. But when the evenings were dull, void of neighborhood debauchery, my two cats and I would succumb to house chores, carrying the laundry to the basement where all three brownstones joined in a gigantic, cavernous spaced filled with a labyrinth of storage units, apartments and laundry services. Albeit rather dark and uninviting, it had its charms, such as the random one armed blue teddy bear that sat precariously on the largest of the washing machines during my entire residency. I say precariously, because it’s last appendage was lodged into the crease of the lid, which at anytime could be opened, setting our friend free. Strangely enough, this never happened.

What did happen, however, is my two cats disappeared one evening into the dark abyss, only to be found 20 minutes later scratching and sniffing a large blue door. Sticking my ear to the uneven wood, I suddenly heard the pathetic scream of a cat. Noticing the door was either locked, or jammed, I used wide shoulders to ram by body against the door, only to find that I had officially broken into the…door storage unit. Evidently, one can never have enough replacement doors, leaning by the dozens against the interior wall. The dark gray and black stripped cat was eventually found slithering between the slabs, thoroughly malnourished, but no worse for wear. With his melancholic and frequent mews, I named him Maestro, and brought him into the fold.

Over the years, he was later renamed “a bag of bones” for his rather astonishing ability to lay on a surface and literally hide his muscular structure with his skin. Maestro and I eventually became close friends, so close, that I would wake up to his body on my chest, his nose to my nose. Fortunately, his kibbles breath was tame, but his cold nose was a startling morning alarm. Sweet, adoring and animated, I love him, but our time together was short. The first scare came when he jumped out of our second story window from our neighbor’s dog running into our apartment and chasing him out of the only open exit. The second time, he took a flying leap out the bathroom window, when we shut it on him unknowingly closed as he was sleeping on the sill. A little freaked out on both occasions, he lived for over a year before his entire body began to shut down.

Looking back I’m fairly confident it was due to both of these events, and to the mere fact that I was too ignorant and naive to even consider bringing him into the vet. In my early 20’s I assumed that if a cat returned home after such a trauma, they were merely cashing in on one of their 9 lives, but never did it dawn on me that I actually needed to do something other than give him ample amount of love.

This same logic haunts me with a family member today, we’ll call Tiffany. Having received news that Tiffany has zero money to get through December, I’m sitting here feeling rather…low, and somehow responsible. Unlike Maestro, however, Tiffany’s situation was brought upon herself from a multitude of poor choices spewed forth from both fear and self-righteousness. The behaviors were self-evident, masked by smiles and self assurances that all would be well. Today, we now know that they are far from well.

Should I have heard her cries sooner, potentially helping her avoid the experience she’s about to endure? I don’t know. I really don’t, because there is nothing more difficult than admitting that someone cannot take care of themselves: that they are emotionally and psychologically incapable of handling life’s roller coaster ride. Maybe if our relationship was different, I could be have been more honest with myself. I could have seen the situation more objectively, clear of rose colored glasses.

Tonight, I wonder if this isn’t a Maestro situation all over again, and I feel horrible knowing that maybe, just maybe, I could have helped her earlier.

A necessary chapter in life’s manual: when to help someone.