It was a beautiful day today, like spring is already here. Birds were atwitter, trees are showing signs of life again, spring plants have started to blossom. Inside the house, a new life, a baby girl, is taking hold, growing stronger every day. It was a beautiful day too, nine months ago. Summer was in full swing, the neighborhood awash with life in full flow. But inside the house, a life was ending, a baby cat, each breath drawn laboriously, a body tired and slowly filling up with the unexcreted toxins. Shanthala had said that day, “It’s a beautiful day to die”. No, it was too beautiful a day to die. I wish he had raged against the dying light. But then, he came with no agendas but to live his time here, no stakes for immortality or such vainglorious ideas. He lived, loved and then went.

After nine months, it was again a Tuesday on the 26th. I relived those days nine months ago, all over again. I remembered that fateful Saturday midnight when I took rushed him to the vet after he vomited for the fifth time that day. Shanthala had started crying saying that she was really worried about him. I had not worried then. How exhausting that Sunday was as we watched him double up as if in sudden pain, hiding under the bed, driven by instinct to hide when vulnerable. And that blessed relief on Sunday night when he jumped on the bed to sleep with me. Little did I know that that was his last jump onto the bed. And then the horrible Monday when a phone call in the morning and a phone call around 3 PM revealed that it was all over. I sat in the corner where he breathed his last at that fateful time in the afternoon. I took Maya and sat by his graveside for a while.

They say a cat has nine lives. Where did he lose his nine, we wondered then. The first was probably when he survived whatever kidney problem he suffered as a kitten. The next was when he came to our house when he was abandoned by the neighbors, trusting us to take care of him. The third was when we brought him back from the animal shelter, where we had given him up because we were uncertain if we could care for him. The fourth was when we discovered that he had a kidney problem when he went for a teeth cleaning procedure and we put him on a special diet to protect his handicapped kidneys. The fifth and sixth were when he was attacked by the landlord’s dogs at the place we stayed in. The seventh was when Shanthala rescued him from the streets of India where he had escaped to, the spirit of adventure and curiosity ever so strong in him. But where did the eighth and ninth go ? How could we have lost him ? The grief of his death is still so strong, Shanthala and I cry remembering him even now.

The presence of Maya has not lessened his loss. I thought that immersed in the daily rituals of raising a newborn, I’d forget about him for a few days. But I suffered no respite. Maybe I guard his loss as some people guard their jewels, protecting it from being forgotten, unwilling to let the memories dim, to let time do its thing.

As many nights endure
Without a moon or star
So will we endure
When one is gone and far – Anjani & Leonard Cohen

Related posts:

1. The End, Five Months On
2. Hymns to the Silence
3. Winter Came Early