In my sunlit bedroom on the fourth of June, I held Ticia in my arms as she
fell asleep for the last time and slipped away across the Rainbow Bridge.
Our little old lady cat was nineteen years old, and dying from kidney
failure. I sang to her, but it's hard to sing when you're crying.
My biggest fear had been that she would crawl off under the bed while I
was somewhere else, and die alone with no-one to hold her and soothe her.
I was especially worried about the week-long vacation we have planned for
August. We were able to save her from that, and give her comfort and love
in her last moments.
She found us at the Cat
City shelter, in Seattle, on the Third of November,
2015. Or maybe I should say that we found each other -- I coaxed her
out of the box on the floor that she was hiding in, gave her some
skritches and pets, picked her up, and cuddled her in my lap. The
shelter staff told us that she'd never allowed that from anyone
else. I thought I was mostly over the untimely loss of Curio back in July, but
she must have sensed that we needed each other.
They told us that her name was Morticia (though it was soon shortened for
daily use), and gave us the Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer dog toy that
had arrived with her at the shelter. From that and her affectionate
personality, we could tell that her previous Person must have loved her
very much. We never found out what happened to them.
In addition to petting and cuddles, I found out on the way home from the
shelter that she also loved music. She had been meowing and restless, but
settled right down when I put on a Heather Dale CD. She was also very
fond of cellophane "crinkle balls" -- she would often carry one into
whichever room I was in and set it down where I could see what a good
huntress she'd been, while making a peculiar bark/growl that I called her
"hunting call". In her younger days she would chase after them -- it was
a reliable way of getting her into a room when we needed to.
She took over the spot on the bed that Curio had occupied. I sleep on my
side, with my arm up beside my head, and that's where she loved to sit,
while I scritched her tummy and waited for sleep to come. In the daytime,
she spent a lot of time on Colleen's lap, getting treats and attention.
She did not get along with m's cat, Cricket. Actually that's an
understatement. We never found out why. (Cricket, when asked, would only
say that it was from a previous life and none of our business. A cat
thing.) We had to keep them in separate rooms. But both of them were
fine as long as they had their people.
She was timid with strangers, and would hide under the bed the first
couple of times a new person came into her room.
I had been singing to her, and N and I both took pictures. When Stefan,
the vet, came back from giving Cricket her Solensia shot I picked Ticia up
and carried her to the white chair in the corner of the room -- her
favorite chair -- and talked softly to her as she fell asleep, her
head resting comfortably on my arm.
She slips silently through the Veil between the worlds, and onto the
Rainbow Bridge. She looks back, a little concerned about the family she
left behind, but there is only the pale shimmer of the Veil. Well,
they'll just have to take care of one another without her.
She's made this trip before.
As she climbs the rainbow-carpeted stairs her age and her illness fall
away, and once again she is a queen in the prime of life, as she was on
the day eleven years ago when she met her latest Person. Back then she
had been frightened and unhappy, still grieving her recent loss. But a
man with a soft voice and gentle hands had coaxed her out of hiding,
petted her, and picked her up, and she'd settled into his lap with a
contented purr. He had been grieving, too. A cat can tell these things.
A pair of sleek black cats -- Desti and Bast -- meet her near the top of
the stairs, and lead her to where Colleen and her previous Person are
sitting, sipping tea and getting acquainted. Curio is there too,
Colleen's previous Cat. They all have a lot of catching up to do.
The Goddess briefly re-manifests: a slim woman with the head of a cat,
before dashing off to her next appointment. A psychopomp's work is never
done.
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