Eulogy for a Cat

July 1st 2015:

Today we had to put down my 21-year-old cat. I picked her out of the litter when I was five years old. I chose her for her cashmere black fur and golden eyes, and if I'm being honest, because I was terrified that, due to superstition, no one else would adopt a fully black cat. Even at that age I knew people did bad things to animals (LOOKING AT YOU, CRUELLA), and I couldn't leave her fate to chance.

....And Dina was a terror. She was the inky, skulking nightmare of my childhood, the danger lurking in every shadow for a chance to sink claw or tooth into flesh. She was the night and she was doom. She became an urban legend to my childhood friends and a scowling obstacle to defiantly, yet quickly, skirt around, with child-hearts hummingbird-racing. As my feet grew bigger it was harder to get around her in tight spaces unscathed, but as if to compensate, my legs growing longer made it easier to leap out of the reaches of her reflexive talons.

Yet, she almost always slept in my room or on my bed, and even if she would (almost always) respond to an attempt at petting with a bite or a scratch, she also would never begrudge me a forehead to forehead rub: an acknowledgement of respect, and even love, between opponents and teammates.

We were two parts of an ecosystem: at odds in a way that made us better and stronger. She has existed with me for the vast majority of my life and therefore has shaped a significant part of who I am. There were fleeting times I thought maybe she was bad luck, maybe picking her was the reason for my variety of personal hardships. But with the amount of good luck I've had in my life with her in the wings I know that can't be true. In fact, maybe black cats are actually good luck.

And in her final years, when senility first made her aggressively search out my lap for persistent terror-filled-yet-cautiously-delighted cuddle sessions, it made me realize that in a weird way she was the first being that ever taught me to challenge my own assumptions; to be skeptical, wary, and cautious; to trust my gut feelings and think logically through a problem, but also to be open to love when it is given.

In her very final few days she could only move one of her three legs and could not get anywhere, drink, or eat on her own. Yet in my lap for the last time, relentlessly and aggressively purring, she used her one good leg to make sure I kept her paw in my hand. Goodbye, Dina Rose Sweetheart. You left scars on my skin, but also scars on my heart.