On life and death, pets and people

Our cat died last night. Monkey was her name—a small black cat that came as part of the package deal when Blythe and I were married more than a decade ago. Not a great cat lover, I must confess that she did ultimately become a fixture in my life; we spent our mornings together, as she liked to sip residual water from the shower stall as I’d get dressed in the morning. She was a gentle cat, and not much trouble, really. Blythe had nurtured and cared for her for two decades, but in recent weeks, it had become clear that the end was near. As her world became increasingly limited, she appeared to be in no apparent discomfort. We were grateful for that.

The end was peaceful. She failed to come out of her favorite place in the closet all day and when Blythe checked on her, discovered that she could not move her back legs—an apparent stroke. So we spent the afternoon watching football on TV as Blythe held her on her lap, still no evidence of pain. We were even able to have the grandkids pet her face one last time.

We were going to take her to the vet this morning, but when we woke early, she had already passed. We buried her on a lovely sunny morning amidst radiant falling leaves at our place on the Palisades. We are sad—it is amazing how one small black cat can evoke such feelings—but all in all, it was not a bad way to die.

Perhaps, precisely because that which impacts us most personally provides the touchstone for our global reality that I was overwhelmed with emotion in juxtaposing these quiet moments with stories ripped from the headlines both yesterday and today: two coordinated suicide bombings in Baghdad kill more than 130; and in Afghanistan, three helicopters crash, killing up to sixteen. 

No peaceful end there. No quiet, living room setting or gently falling leaves. No families gathered around to say good-bye and reminisce about younger days. Instead, there were bomb blasts and reigning shrapnel; screams of pain and futile, chaotic attempts at rescue.

It is almost obscene to compare the grief in our home to the horrors that these wars continue to create. Like the vast majority of Americans, I am completely isolated from events in these war zones. This lack of personal involvement in these affairs on the part of so many citizens dulls the collective consciousness and is one of the reasons these nightmares have dragged on so long. And so it is no small irony that in the midst of the carnage recorded in the headlines, that the loss of a single, small, black cat can unleash in me anew the outrage at what these wars have done.