RON HENGGELER

July 27, 2006
Alexander Nevski

Dear Mrs. Betz.

Your wonderful story about Butch reminded me of a cat that I once had the good fortune of being adopted by, also for twenty two years. I called him Alex, or Big Al. His formal name was Alexander Nevski, after the music by Prokofiev.

Alex was a feral cat living wild in Clarion Alley between Mission and Valencia in the heart the Mission District. He was already a street wise adult when he showed up one day on my back stairs of the apartment building where I was living at the time. Those stairs it turns out gave him a modicum of relief from the torrential winter rains that were hammering San Francisco that year. At the time he was little more than skin stretched over bones, completely wild and untrusting, looking very abused and unhealthy. If I would even hint at trying to approach nearer to him, he vanished in a terrified flash.

I began to bring scraps home from the restaurant where I was working, leaving them on the landing outside my back door. It didn't take long for the food to begin disappearing, and slowly but surely this wild frightened creature began to warm up to me. A couple of weeks passed with Alex feasting on scraps of filet, salmon, sole, and his favorite, sandabs (probably because of the butter). All this concern for him (and my daily bountiful tasty offerings) finally paid off. He began to allow me to pet him and brush him, and a dialogue began between us. One rainy day without much fanfare, he walked through the opened back door to the apartment and he never left after that.

He was an indoor cat forever after...twenty two years, a very long time. Alex was an absolutely perfect house cat. He was gentle, sweet, loving, devoted, and so totally and amazingly undemanding. During his life he lived with several other cats that I had. Alex was never ornery or angry. He never fought with the others. He was never jealous or spiteful. He simply didn't have it in him. If cats can be saints, Alex was a noble saint.

As an old cat he weighed 24 pounds, not because he was fat, he was just a big cat. He looked like a big black raccoon throughout most of his life and I always told people he must have some Main Coon sitting in a branch of his family tree.

The photo of Alex that I am sending along is the last one I ever took of him. When I took it, I knew it was the last image I'd ever make of him. A couple of days after taking the photo, I noticed a remarkable change in Alex. I knew deep inside that it was finally getting close to the end for him, (not another false alarm like so many times before) and he seemed to know it too. He lost all interest in food (and boy, he loved to eat). He lay quietly and comfortably for two days in the round room overlooking the San Francisco skyline. He had the sublime undisturbed air of a meditating Buddha. It was winter and it was raining hard for days without letup. The beautiful city hall dome nearby was intermittently appearing and disappearing in the wind-driven sheets of torrential rain.

Early in the morning on the third day, I was washing dishes in the kitchen when I had the strongest sense to go into the other room and check on Alex. I found him breathing slow and very heavily, but when I picked him up, his breath calmed. I held him gently, I stroked his forehead, I said his name over and over. As if he had waited for me, he gave up and died peacefully in my arms like a soft whisper. Asleep.

I wrapped Alex’s warm limp body in an old San Francisco flag (when I placed him on the Phoenix in the center of the flag, the wings of the mythological bird that sprang out on each side of him, suddenly made him look like a little angel). In the middle of a winter rainstorm, my friend David, and I, and Alex, drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and into the Marin Headlands. The storm was so intense we could barely see in front of the vehicle. We passed Hawk Hill at the top of the highest ridge and began our descent on the way to Point Bonita. Just beyond Black Sand Beach a most remarkable thing happened. The storm clouds broke open for a moment and a brilliant thick bar of sunlight fell through the dark gray sky and hit the earth near a tree on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Golden Gate leading into San Francisco Bay. I stopped the van, got out, and in the pouring rain walked with Alexander Nevski to the cliff overlooking the rocky shoreline far below. I unwrapped him from the flag and refolded it into a little cat bed. I placed Alex under the tree on this little throne with him facing the Golden Gate Bridge. A cat nap overlooking the Gate...now that is truly heaven!

I love to think of my wild Alex being a part of that landscape now. He became the bugs and birds and the wild flowers in the spring and even the deer that eat the wild grasses. That tree where Alex’s bones are scattered can be seen from all around and even from miles away at Land’s End on the other side of the Gate. The Headlands/Bridge photo that I’ve included with this story shows the tree where Alex resides in my fond memories. It’s the middle tree.

Best regards.
Ron Henggeler

 

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