I had to say goodbye to Pixie this morning.

[Ocelot II]

She was 17 years old, suffering from chronic kidney disease - common in old cats - but she was managing pretty well until this weekend. She stopped eating, couldn't even be tempted with Churu or tuna, got increasingly lethargic to the point where I wasn't sure she would still be alive this morning. She was, but was clearly failing. Got a quick vet appointment, and after some testing confirmed what I'd feared - kidney failure - plus the discovery of a mass near her heart, probably cancer. Her heartbeat was abnormally slow, and she was obviously fading. So we decided it was time for her to cross the bridge. This was the seventh time I've had to do this and it never gets easier. But she'd had a good life, I think, and she went quickly and peacefully.

She was born to a barn cat at a Nebraska farm, friends of my family. I was visiting in the fall of 2008, and I was offered this kitten, about four months old, who looked like she might be part Siamese - blue eyes, dark tail and ears. Turned out she wasn't Siamese at all, and she grew long fur with dark brown spots, and her feet stayed white. She had a glorious fluffy tail. Out of curiosity I got her DNA tested; she was 10% Maine Coon; a smidgen of Persian and a whole lot of generic cat. She was kind of a diva, developed a complicated frenemy relationship with the two older cats (both of whom passed away within a month of each other during the summer of 2020). She didn't like to be picked up, hissed at even minor annoyances, hid when anyone visited, but she loved to sit on my lap or curl up next to me at night. She didn't meow; she spoke in little murmurs and chirps. Lately she made a little nest on the back of the couch where she could watch me if she did't feel like sitting on me, and I'd always look for her there when I came home, and she'd chirp at me when I greeted her.

So today I came home with the empty carrier and she wasn't in her nest on the couch. I put away her food bowls, removed the litter box and swept up the scattered litter. For the first time in many decades I am catless, and there's a big cat-shaped hole in my heart.

“We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle; easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we would still live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.

Another cat? Perhaps. For love there is also a season; its seeds must be resown. But a family cat is not replaceable like a worn-out coat or a set of tires. Each new kitten becomes its own cat, and none is repeated. I am four cats old, measuring out my life in friends that have succeeded but not replaced one another." - Irving Townsend