On My Cat’s Last Day

On the last day we spent together, my cat Charlotte was tending her bad hip, same as always. She used to like to lean it against me as I sat writing in my wide chair, the two of us flank to flank.On our last day, I had come in at dawn from the coast on the red-eye and was already working in my study at 7 a.m. when she emerged from her favorite sleeping-place under the eaves. During that four-day trip, my husband David had cared for her, setting out the individually-wrapped saucers of wet food I'd made up and keeping both the kibble and the water dish freshly filled.I think now of what an engine of nocturnal pep she was a kitten, when she would scale the tall cliff-face of our bed to administer wildly-scrabbling scalp massage to our sleeping noggins.I think of what a sedate lady she later became, in these last years especially when she spent most of her time monitoring joint pain, just like us. And yet she was content; happy to see us always; freshly delighted by every sudden pool of sunlight that opened up on the floor of whatever room she was in.With this grateful nature and David's good care it may be that she never missed me while I was gone. It may be that she took my love and care as givens, the way children do who see their parents as eternal fixtures,ever-sheltering.If she did I'm glad she did, though it never worked the other way: I never took her for granted. We humans don't, with our pets, because we see how much they love us, all undeserving. Because we know how likely it is that we must one day go on without them.At 8 a.m. on the last morning we spent together, I was seated at my laptop with Charlotte curled up against me. But the night-long flight had taken its toll on me and by 9:30 my eyes were closing as I worked.I don't know why I did what I did then, since never before in our 15 Junes together had I tried to move her just because I wanted her with me, but it's what I did that morning. I carried her into the bedroom with me, where, with the lace of the curtains billowing and the softly buzzing sounds of summer wafting up from the street below, the two of us closed our eyes and slept three hours.She died at 6 that night.Within minutes I felt her spirit vanish, which means I do not hear a phantom cry at the door and I do not feel the phantom press of her flank against mine.I do dream of her though and know well what comfort there can be in dreams: Once, about six months after my entirely healthy 80-year-old mother died all unexpected at a celebration in her honor, I dreamed the two of us were trotting down a wide staircase together. When I suddenly looked over at her and said "Mom! You're running!" she replied, "I know, isn't it great? I'm not old anymore!"Maybe it's the most we can say our dead, that age no longer touches them.Neither our much-loved pets nor our mothers who did their best for us every day; neither our once-young dads nor our fierce big sisters; neither our brave brothers nor our babies lost before their time: They get no older.Getting older is what we do. We age, and we remember, and if we’re wise we too show daily thanks for whatever pool of sunshine opens sudden around us.