Don and Rainy

I never taught Don but I think he and I must have started, in our different ways, at UM at almost the same time. He was a lively presence all the time, but he and I also became joking friends thru the coincidence of shared routes (I still think of the brown house on Washington where he had a flat for awhile as "Don's house"), but above all because I just liked and trusted him so much that it led to him become a frequent care-giver to my cat, Rainy. That sounds like a small thing, but it wasn't. Rainy was a fluffy black foundling who was extraordinarily, effusively affective. You could've dangled her by her toes and she's still have purred her adoration at you. And Don just delighted in her sweetness and was so gentle and funny with her. But also, she had been quite cowed by being around other cats but, living with me on her own, she became more demanding. Not grumpy, but loud and sort of a bossyboots. We referred to this as "when Rainy learned to swear." She would purr and shout at the same time and Don just scooped her up and teased her and played with her. Way back then in the dark ages too, music was still often on tapes and I would notice when I'd return from a trip out of town that Don might borrow tapes (disco and hi-NRG--hmm!) or they'd just be in a different order and I knew he'd been there not just to feed her and do the necessities but to hang with her and, I'm pretty sure, to dance with her. I loved the thought of this big sweet guy boogeying around my apt with a ball of deranged kitty love in her arms or on his shoulders. He was so smart and sharp and tough but it was that freedom of his heart that I find I, nervous junior faculty member without tenure or a certain life, was taking sustenance and support from just as much as Rainy did, in our jokey, casual, intellectually engaged but not really bothered about constantly proving it, friendship. I am so so sorry that I will never see him again. Kali Israel, University of Michigan