Dewey's Nine Lives

Then one day, with Dewey in full catnip conniption (the library staff called it the Dewey Mambo), Yvonne looked up and saw me staring at her. I didn’t say anything, but a few days later, I stopped her and said, “Yvonne, please don’t bring Dewey so much catnip. I know he enjoys it, but it’s not good for him.”

She didn’t say anything. She just looked down and walked away. I only meant for her to cut her gift back to, for instance, once a week, but she never brought another leaf of catnip to the library.

At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing, because that catnip was wearing Dewey out. He would go absolutely bonkers for twenty minutes, then Yvonne would leave and Dewey would pass out for hours. That cat was catatonic. It didn’t seem fair. Yvonne was enjoying Dewey’s company, but his other friends weren’t getting a chance.

In hindsight, I should have been more delicate in handling the catnip incident. I should have understood that this wasn’t just a habit for Yvonne, it was an important part of her day. Instead of examining the root of the behavior, I looked at the outward actions and told her to stop. Instead of putting my arm around her, I pushed her away.

But Dewey—he never did that. A thousand times, in a thousand different ways, Dewey was there when people needed him. He did it for dozens of people, I’m sure, who have never opened up to me. He did it for Bill Mullenburg, and he did it for Yvonne, exactly as Tim had done it with Kyle in Bret’s Sunday school class. When no one else understood, Dewey made the gesture. He didn’t understand the root causes, of course, but he sensed something was wrong. And out of animal instinct, he acted. In his own way, Dewey put his arm around Yvonne and said, It’s all right. You are one of us. You will be fine.

I’m not saying Dewey changed Yvonne’s life. I think he eased her sorrow, but he by no means ended it. A month after Tobi’s passing, Yvonne lost her temper on the assembly line and was not only fired but escorted out of the building. She had been frustrated by management for a long time, but I can’t help but believe the last straw was the pain of Tobi’s death.

It didn’t stop there. A few years later, her mother died of colon cancer. Two years after that, Yvonne was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She drove six hours to Iowa City, for six months, to receive treatment. By the time she beat the cancer, her legs had given way. She had stood in the same position on the assembly line eight hours a day, five days a week, for years, and the effort had worn down her knees.

But she still had her faith. She still had her routines. And she still had Dewey. He lived fifteen years after Tobi’s death, and for all those years, Yvonne Barry came to the library several times each week to see him. If you had asked me at the time, I would not have said their relationship was particularly special. Many people came into the library every week, and almost all of them stopped to visit with Dewey. How was I to know the difference between those who thought Dewey was cute, and those who needed and valued his friendship and love?

After Dewey’s memorial service, Yvonne told me about the day Dewey sat on her lap and comforted her. It still meant something to her, more than a decade later. And I was touched. Until that moment, I didn’t know Yvonne had ever had a cat of her own. I didn’t know what Tobi meant to her, but I knew Dewey had comforted her, as he had always comforted me, simply by being present in her life. Little moments can mean everything. They can change a life. Dewey taught me that. Yvonne’s story (once I took the time to listen) confirmed it. That moment on her lap epitomized Dewey’s understanding and friendship, his effect on the people of Spencer, Iowa, in a way I had never considered before.

I didn’t notice when Yvonne stopped coming to the library after Dewey’s death. I knew her visits had become less frequent, but she disappeared just as she appeared: like a shadow, without a sound. By the time I went to visit her two years after Dewey’s death, she was living in a rehabilitation facility with a brace on her right leg. She was only in her fifties, but the doctors weren’t sure she would walk again. Even if she recovered, she had no place to go. Her father was in the nursing home next door, and the family house had been sold. Yvonne told the new owners, “Don’t dig down in that corner of the yard because that’s where my Tobi is buried.”

“Tobi’s still down there,” she told me. “At least her body anyway.”