She was a nice cat

Daisy

I lost my Daisy today, just shy of her 14th birthday. She leaves me and her sister Princess in deep mourning. 

This is the time of the big empty. We feel her absence keenly. She was just here and now she's gone. It's all I can do to stop myself from looking for her beneath her favorite giant hostas. She won't be waiting in the driveway with her tail high in greeting when I come home. Her days of patrolling for mice and chipmunks are over. No more running like an Olympic track star from the far edge of the woods, all the way without stopping, to speed through the cat door like a bullet. 

I never realized how much the outdoors meant to her until her final weeks. That she would fall ill on the summer side of life was a blessing. She loved sleeping in the breezeway with her sister. Listening to the night chorus of crickets and frogs was a kind of magic medicine that soothed them both as her health failed. 

My brave, good girl died at home. After the vet gave her a sedative, I took her out to the garden for the last time. She stayed awake long enough to take it all in: her ears twitched at the sound of birdsong and she breathed in the refreshing sea breezes that arrived after days of tropical heat. Then she fell asleep. The end came easy.

Both my wonderful vet and her assistant took exceptional care of Daisy. Her assistant and Daisy formed a special bond. When I thanked her for the warm and loving way she had held and comforted my Daisy, her eyes welled up, and she said, in the most heartfelt way, "She was a nice cat."

She truly was and caring for her was an honor and a privilege. We will meet again, my daughter. Love never ends.