My friend Mr. Keith lives in central Missouri, and I have never seen his face. “Keith” is his first name, not his last, but his email address is MisterKeith, so that is how I address him in my head.

I address Mr. Keith as “Dearest Keith” in email, which is where our friendship lives. Mr. Keith calls it “the email,” and I think he is onto something. It sounds more important to say you have to attend to “the email” rather than just “email.” Mr. Keith never takes longer than thirty minutes to respond. 

One day back there in the Show-Me State, Mr. Keith searched for “cat shelters near me.” Cat Haven is twelve hundred miles from Mr. Keith. He has never even been to New Jersey. But “the Google” said Cat Haven was near Mr. Keith, and he kept clicking things, and by the time I told him we were in New Jersey, it didn’t matter.

I answer the emails that land in the Support inbox. “Support” is supposed to mean donations, but any word that can be a noun, a verb, and an adjective is a kind of suggestion box. Or maybe it is a poetry prompt. Mr. Keith worked in quality control, but he likes to think he’s a little bit of a philosopher. 

Mr. Keith wrote to ask if we have grief groups for people who can’t get over the hump. Cleo passed six months earlier, but dang if it didn’t feel fresh as a gash every day. Mr. Keith has had cats pass before. People say they “passed away,” but Mr. Keith stops at “passed.” He thinks of it as a promotion. They have gone on to their reward. Mr. Keith does not doubt that for one minute. But dang if the toy mouse or jangle bell toy by the baseboard doesn’t rip him to ribbons. This time is different.

I had to tell Mr. Keith that we are in New Jersey. I wrote the things I write when people contact Support. I told him Cleo was blessed to be loved, and that the bond they shared is everlasting. I have answered the email for Support long enough to know a few places where comfort hides. Its tail sticks out from under the sofa. But when I answered the email from Mr. Keith, I erased all the regular words. I started over and wrote “Dearest Keith” and told him I don’t know if there is a hump to get over. I erased that, too, and then I typed it again.

I asked Mr. Keith if maybe love is the kind of big mountain we don’t have in New Jersey or Missouri. Most of life goes on in the lower elevations, where we all trade granola bars. There are chalets and bungalows. But sometimes, while you are busy planting portulacas or conducting quality control, someone clips a carabiner on your belt loop and starts climbing without asking. You are going up. You need each other like oxygen tanks. You see where the rock doves build their nests. And then one of you has to leave the other at base camp, and you have to decide. You can go back to the bungalows, where it will be easier to breathe. Or you can wait as long as it takes for a ride to the mountaintop, where all the jangle bells are ringing, and no chairs are cold. I asked Mr. Keith if that made any sense at all.

Mr. Keith wrote back in eleven minutes. He asked if I knew that song, he thinks it’s Willie Nelson but he’s not sure, that says some people get one, but most people get none. Dang if that doesn’t put things in perspective. He wrote to Support because Cleo was his one, but you can’t just say that to people in the supermarket. Mr. Keith doesn’t mind if people think he’s a “crazy cat man,” because that only means they haven’t felt what he felt about an animal, not yet. 

He hoped everyone gets a ride up the mountain, whatever kind of creature is their grappling hook. He liked the image of people getting yanked up by the seat of their pants. Mr. Keith said he could wait at base camp, and maybe give some water to new arrivals there. Mr. Keith asked if maybe he could write to Support from time to time. 

I wish I could give him the grand tour of Cat Haven. Mr. Keith likes that we take the ragamuffin cats, the sick and prickly and the least of these. He would sure like to see them. But Mr. Keith was never one for travel, and now that he has the neuropathy, he’s a little bit of a gnome. He asked me if I think he got the neuropathy so he’d get to spend all those days sitting around with Cleo. He doesn’t mean just sitting around. I know what he means. They would lie on the couch and talk about beautiful things. 

Mr. Keith prays out loud to keep himself focused, otherwise he starts writing his grocery list or going down all the highways and byways. If there was a Guinness Record for the cat who heard the words “give us this day our daily bread” the most times, it might be Cleo. Dang if he misses that. Mr. Keith asks me repeatedly if I think cats pray in their own way.

No matter how many times I say “yes,” Mr. Keith keeps asking. Mr. Keith says there is one other deacon at church who he is pretty sure has been to base camp. They are the only baritones in the choir. They wait until the sopranos flutter out, and then they talk, sometimes. When Gary’s wife died, Gary started having dreams where no one was afraid at all. Gary never knew that was possible. Now Gary knows that everyone is afraid, but it is temporary. Mr. Keith likes to talk to Gary, although he doesn’t specify that Cleo was a cat. 

My boss doesn’t know about Mr. Keith, because I am paid to answer the email as though “Support” means “donations.” Mr. Keith mails Cat Haven a Home Depot gift card every Christmas. His boss sends one to all the retired guys. Mr. Keith hopes we can use it for something. I tell him that cat shelters need light bulbs and batteries, and he will keep us going in power outages. Mr. Keith tells me I should never say we lose power, just electricity, because words build the house we live in. He still prays out loud. One of these days I will ask him to send me a photo, although I am pretty sure I would recognize my friend Mr. Keith in the wild.