Ebola was my cat. This is her.
She was notoriously defiant. I felt that she would have wanted her epitaph to read “I did as I pleased. Nothing more, nothing less.”
She died. On Friday the 13th, she went to sleep as a result of a lethal injection. Not an execution, an escape. I can only hope someone will love me that much, were I in pain, to allow me to sleep.
As I watched the life drain from her once bright eyes, tears welled in my own. She had been so brave up til then. An ulcer had eaten its way through the roof of her mouth. Unable to eat without discomfort, I remembered that morning, how content she seemed to lie on my chest, the last time I would really look in her eyes and lay with her.
To say she was “just a cat” is like saying that the Mona Lisa was “just a painting”. She was my family, as much as any family I’ve ever had. I had her from the moment she was a kitten to the last moment, 15 years later when I carried her still body away in a box. I will bury her today.
There’s no eulogy that seems appropriate. There’s a lot of emotion to work through on this. So I will write. I will paint. I will honour her memory in all the ways I can. It’s the least I can do.