Death of a Cat

On love, friendship, belonging and letting go.

I met Clarice 20 years ago. It was a late fall evening. My birthday. She arrived to the party in a cardboard carrier, quiet as a church mouse. Not a peep or a stir. The box sat still by the woodstove, as I remember it. I opened up the top carefully to preserve the peace and peered into her means of transport and saw her small perfect self. She was a couple months old and was little for her age. Lifting her body up, I did not presume she would want a hug. She was a cat after all, and they are usually the initators of intimacy. I softly placed her on the rug in front of the fire and had a moment of concern glancing at the blaze. She was a rescue cat from the Old Fire that had recently burned through Lake Arrowhead, California. Would she startle? Fire, strange people and a new place? But no. She was regal even then. She did not look at the fire, instead tilting her fine boned face upward, softly gazing into my eyes as if I was as familiar as an old friend. A step or two forward toward me, she offered me another opportunity to lift her into my arms. And for the next two decades, she was mine and I was hers.

She would teach me how to belong. When the world was too big for small cares, she was always there. The only consistent love that I have ever known was wrapped in a diminutive grey and white coat, purring softly on my belly at just about any time…