Sarah

Our older cat, Sarah, was nearly twenty-two when she passed away last week. That's ancient, for a cat. She'd been deaf for a couple of years, and somewhat frail, but almost up until the end, she had a vast enthusiasm for her three primary interests in life—food, peeing, and finding a warm body to cuddle next to.

We'd resigned ourselves to losing Sarah last year when all three of our cats were struck by a mystery virus, after we put our house on the market. Despite the fact that she was a crazy mess who couldn't breathe and stopped eating and drinking for two days, Sarah managed to bounce back even before the virus abruptly took our middle cat, Chloe. After that tragedy, any extra time we got with Sarah was more or less a blessing.

Sarah loved the smaller apartment in which we've been living in Connecticut. She had no stairs to climb in order to reach her litter box. The paths from her favorite sleeping places to the water dish and food pan were short and swift. In her last months she took a lot of pleasure in finding unique places to nap. She investigated and made nests in any open cupboard. She would hop on the bed and take a circuitous route across pillows and bookcase shelves and laundry baskets to the tops of the bureaus, where she would nap in the sun, next to the windows.

She also loved to go outdoors, here. Whenever someone would head for the door, she'd perk up and scamper to follow. I'd proscribed Sarah from any of the usual supervised outdoor trips I take with Fred, because she has had a lifelong tendency of vomiting, liberally and copiously, that was only intensified when she ate grass. (Once, notoriously, she stuck her head under the lid of our grand piano and yakked up on the strings.) The courtyard between our house and the church is paved with slate, however, with very little grass. She enjoyed sunning herself on the warm stones, over the summer.

The screen door of our apartment doesn't shut immediately when it's closed; it hangs open at the quarter point, lingers for a while, and then gently closes ten seconds later. In August, Craig left the house for a rehearsal one afternoon and didn't notice Sarah escaping through the screen door behind him. He came back an hour and a half or two hours later to find her sweetly and complacently occupying the stoop outside the door. I'd no idea she'd gotten outdoors and was in the middle of making dinner when the pair of them returned. Craig was both frantic and remorseful, but Sarah glowed with the satisfaction of one who'd enjoyed a secret adventure.

It cheers me up to think she had that one last hurrah.

Sarah started to slow down the weekend before last. She stopped nagging us for food in the mornings; she ceased running for the door when I'd walk out to get the mail. She suddenly wasn't able to hop up onto the bed any longer, and even the much lower sofa was too much of a strain. By that Monday, she'd stopped eating. We kept her close, putting her next to us on the bed at night and keeping her by us during the daytime. She simply seemed to be winding down, like a top spinning in decreasing circles. By Wednesday we had to face a rough decision—was it kinder to have her put down, or simply to keep her by us until the end. We decided on the former. I couldn't bear the thought of her having some kind of terrible, painful medical emergency in the middle of the night or at some time when the vet's office wasn't open. We made an appointment for the afternoon.

We wrapped Sarah gently in a towel and drove to the vet's that afternoon. She passed away in my arms on the way over. And you know, rather than meeting the end on a cold exam table, I'm glad she went that way—quietly, of old age after a very long and happy life, warm, in my arms and surrounded by the two people who loved her most.

Isn't that all any of us could really hope for?