See the Light that Shines from a True, True Friend

2017

This is a eulogy for Gracie, my kid's beloved cat. 

Gracie came to us in 2010, as part of a litter of foster kittens that I volunteered us to raise for the local animal shelter until they weighed enough to be adoptable. I volunteered us for that role because Will, who had just turned six, had also just broken her leg, of all things, and I figured that a month or so of tiny kittens would be an entertaining and distracting way to spend her time in a cast.

Here's Gracie and her human soulmate on the day that they met:

2010

I don't even have words for the bond between those two, right from the beginning. Gracie chose my kid to be her person, and my kid chose Gracie to be her cat, and from that moment on, they were each the most important thing in each other's lives. 

2011

For years, Gracie was my kid's living stuffed animal, her real-life imaginary friend. She was invited to all her tea parties, carried everywhere in a doll-sized ring sling or in her arms, spoken to like a best friend who carried her own half of the conversation. 

2013

Once, her kid and I took Gracie to the vet for a sick visit, and it was ridiculous because even feeling like crap, Gracie was ALL OVER that office. She was on the vet's shoulders, under the sink, in the trash--he opened a high cabinet at one point and Gracie leapt up INTO the cabinet and started rifling through the stuff, knocking things over, just completely unafraid. The vet said, "I always know when a cat belongs to a little girl, because they're so well socialized."

2014

Gracie was like that because she knew there was never anything to be afraid of. Her kid was always right there to talk to her like a person, and if her kid was anywhere on the property, then Gracie knew where she was and was likely right there with her.

2015

For her entire life, Gracie was her kid's shadow. She walked beside her every day, and slept beside her every night. She vastly preferred being an indoor cat, but when her kid went outdoors, so did Gracie.

2016

 When her kid hiked in our woods, so did Gracie, following right beside her on the path until she decided that she was done walking and asked her kid to carry her. For her entire childhood, from the ages of 4 to 16, most of her kid's memories are wrapped in the presence and unconditional love of Gracie.

2017

As her kid became older and started spending less time playing ponies and more time reading, drawing, and writing, it became a running joke that Gracie never let her get any work done. She was always wanting to be on her lap--and not just over her lap, but draped over her arms, or sprawled across her chest with her face against her kid's face, purring so loudly you could hear her from the next room. 

2018

Her kid tolerated this exactly as indulgently as Gracie had tolerated being a living stuffed animal for years, and they stayed inseparable, a greying grey tabby spending her days and nights lounging on a teenager who carried her everywhere she went and held her on her lap while she did everything from online school to art projects to trying to eat lunch.

2019

Gracie was possibly the gentlest soul I've ever encountered--certainly the gentlest cat I've ever known. Spots leaves dead mice at the back door and must be banished inside when rabbits are foolish enough to nest nearby, and Jones never learned not to bite and scratch when he roughhouses with a human's arm, but I've never known Gracie to choose violence. 

2020

She never put a claw out other than to hang on, I never heard her hiss, I knew better than to rely on her for assistance for any mouse infestation, and her strongest protest at any sort of perceived mistreatment was a meow. 

2021

All Gracie ever wanted in order to be perfectly content was to be with her kid. Her kid wanted the same thing, and so I think Gracie lived the happiest life that a cat could attain.

2022

We thought Gracie had a respiratory infection, this month. Jones had one last summer, and sneezed and looked pitiful for a few days, then we took him to the vet, got him some antibiotics, and he bounced right back. So when Gracie started sneezing and looking pitiful for a few days, we took her to the vet. The local vets aren't super equipped for much more than well checks and dental cleanings and prescribing antibiotics, but they did tell me that there was definitely something much more wrong with Gracie than just a respiratory infection, so I essentially came home from that visit, handed her off to Matt, and he drove her up to a vet hospital in Indianapolis. That's where they diagnosed Gracie's respiratory infection, and also her kidney failure.

Gracie and her kid had another week together, after that. We doted on her and kept her comfortable while we grieved her and watched her fade, and then one morning her kid and I agreed that Gracie no longer looked as comfortable as we wanted her to be, so Matt called every vet in two counties to find her a same-day euthanasia appointment. 

Taking Gracie to be euthanized is one of the worst things that I've ever had to do, but also... I don't know, also healing, maybe? Or, cathartic? Where I come from, my family euthanized every one of my pets in secret. I was literally the kid who was told that my elderly dog had gone to live on a farm, and a few years later, that my sick cat had been put to sleep while I was at school that day. And I don't know if it's related or not, but I have a LOT of anxiety about the well-being of the family pets. I can't handle the stress of keeping short-lived pets like fish and hamsters, and I am extremely concerned that our cats, dog, and chickens are safe and happy. Like, half of every vacation is spent internally fretting about their welfare, since they're where I can't see them.

So although having my kid's best friend and childhood companion euthanized was absolutely awful, it honestly did comfort me to hold her head in my hands as she slipped away. I looked into her face and told her that she was okay and reassured myself that she wasn't scared, and she wasn't in pain, and then she was gone. 

And now, we just go on with a Gracie-sized hole in our family. It's weird to look at my kid and not see her draped in grey tabby, and it hurts to see all the places in her day where she grieves the absence of her beloved pet. I swear, every time a cat dies, I wonder to myself why on earth I go to the trouble of loving a pet, when I already know how agonizing it will end up. Why did I subject a child of mine to this much pain? Why did I let her love Gracie so hard? Why did I not warn her to guard her heart even a little?

I think you can only love a pet that way one time. You get one pet, that first pet that makes itself absolutely yours, that you love unabashedly, with a heart that does not know the grief you will inevitably feel. All your pets after that one, you love them just as well, but your heart knows how it will hurt one day with your love of them, and so it's different. 

So, here's to Snowball. Here's to Gracie. Here's to friends who love us with everything they are, and we who love them back just the same.