Descendent of Bast

One month ago today we put our cat, Missy, to sleep.  It still hurts to realize that she is gone, that she will never again “sing” in the bathroom or sneak into my lap while I am trying to eat breakfast.  She made my life richer. 

 

 

Descendent of Bast
Morgan O’Donnell

 

I am supposed to be working on my paper, preparing for a presentation.  Instead, I sit at my makeshift desk, looking out the second story window at trees rocking in the breeze.  I find their gentle swaying comforting.  The only comfort I can find.

 

My eyes water, leaking sorrow and salt.  My cat is dying.  My tiny tortoiseshell friend/child.  The bedroom we have turned into her hospital room reeks.  Ammonia and the slight hint of deodorizer along with the smell of stale food permeate everything.  I am smothering in the scent of death.

 

This morning I lay on the bed to spend some time with her.  The rich red plush blanket crowns the guest bed like this redecorated room crowns the house.  Missy looks up from the floor beside the bed, puts her paws on the edge and crouches.  She cannot jump.  Her eyes look at me helplessly.  This is the cat who would hide on top of the kitchen cabinets behind the artificial plants, her eye gleaming from beneath plastic green leaves like a domestic jungle cat.

 

I pick her up and it is like moving air.  Her tiny body is being hollowed out by something.  I am afraid I will hurt her with my giant, fumbling hands. 

 

On the bed beside me, she pauses unsteadily as if unsure where she is, but only for a moment.  Then she spots my ample lap and seems to float on to me.  She lies like a furred breeze, barely stirring.  I stroke her head as if performing surgery on a baby.  She turns her gaunt face and looks me in the eye.  Liquid black stares out as the tiniest purr trembles through her.  It is like looking into the eyes of a god, watching a dying star collapse, or seeing the bud of a spring bluebonnet unfurl slowly in the morning sun.  Knowing yet unknowable.

 

For a moment, a fraction of a second, the span of a heartbeat, I “know.”  I am connected, a part of her, and the sun explodes inside of me.  Then she turns her head, drifting away from the trees, the dirt, the breeze.  I am too fragile for the full love of this descendent of Bast, cousin of the jaguar.