Gomez, the resident lizard at the Community Bookstore died last month. That’s my niece Sonya staring into her cage on October 5th just a few weeks before Gomez expired.
I overheard Catherine telling another customer. I told her I wanted to do an obit but she said she had one on the store’s website already. Here it is:
Dear Friends,
It’s with deep sorrow that I write to report the death on Sunday, October 27th, of Gomez, the Bookstore’s Resident Iguana.
She came to live with us when a desperate young man appeared in the
Bookstore one day. He rushed in the door, attacked the counter and
said “I don’t even know why I’m here, but I have to find a
home for my Iguana, I’m moving in five days, and I haven’t been able to
find anyone to take her.” A friend and co-worker took one look at him,
snorted and said “Boy, did you walk into the right place.”
Confusing Iguanas with Geckos, I agreed to take her — how much trouble
could one little Lizard be? Imagine my surprise when she turned out to
be a four-foot long, 11-year old Diva.
It was already too late to back out. We took Gomez on knowing next-door to nothing about keeping lizards, nothing about
lizards, but from the moment I went to her apartment to meet her and
she climbed onto my leg and fell asleep while I stroked her back, it
was love. She was an amazing creature. Iguanas make no
sound and have few of mammal’s tricks of communication at their
disposal. They speak with their bodies, with their color, and most of
all, with their eyes. And Gomez did. With her beautiful beautiful eyes, most of all.
Knowing Gomez was an education. She was not a mammal. She
wasn’t warm, or built to be cuddly, and yet she did cuddle. She
distinguished between people, recognized us as individuals. She had
moods, and made demands, and found ways to communicate with us from the
distance of her difference. I learned from her that there is some sort
of truth to, a character of, being alive — that there are certain
universals.
There were two occassions, when she was living in my apartment, on
which I returned home in tears, having been through some horrendous
personal loss. On both occassions, Gomez watched me carefully through
the glass of her cage, then beat patiently on the door until I stood up
from the chair where I was sitting and crying, and slid open the door
to her kingdom. I went back to my chair, and carried on crying. Gomez
dropped four feet to the floor, then crossed the room, sat at my feet
peering up at me, then climbed slowly, gently, up my legs, across my
lap, and climbed up to rest her head on my shoulder, spreading her body
across mine. She comforted me. Her choice.
She was a profound and mysterious creature.
When I brought her to live in the bookstore because I was almost
never at home and, with nothing to watch, she was bored, I thought the
neighborhood would revolt. I thought people’s fear of the strange and
unfamiliar would make having her in the store a liability. To my
amazement, the people of Park Slope — you — fell in love with her. For
the last four years, it has amazed me to hear small children who can
barely speak, lisping out “Ig-WANNA!” I have watched beautiful women
stroke Gomez’ spines with delight. I’ve seen with amazement this slow
and ancient, mysterious creature become the beloved mascot of the store.
I watched impatiently, as she grew older, and became slower. For the last year or so, she didn’t even want to leave her house (except to gobble up cat food), just wanted to lie basking under the warmth of the light.
Slower and slower, and skinnier, and perhaps sadder . . . . this
weekend, when we suddenly realized what was happening, and scrambled
round to try to pull her back from the brink of where she’d already
gone . . . she was blue — deep turquoise blue, which was always her
happiest color.
I think she suffered a great deal, in dying. I know we suffered,
watching her, and trying to help, and failing. And yet, she was blue —
the richest most beautiful blue she’s been in ages.
It’s a mystery. Maybe not even a very nice one. More lessons, from Gomez.
Thank you all for loving her so much. We will not see her like
again. Gomez is dead. Long live Gomez. And long live what she taught
us. What she taught me.
We’ll keep her house in the bookstore. We’ll keep it ready, for the
next creature who needs help. If we’re very lucky, we may even meet
another such . . . Grand Diva.