Ten months of paradise.

We knew what was happening for several days. There’s been a vigil. Cassie was eating four cans of cat food a day and it wasn’t adding an ounce to her frame. Then she stopped eating altogether. No matter how many cans and flavors we gave her. Raebert went into a funk this morning.

Raebert’s been in a funk. He knows. He always knows everything.

Okay. She was fifteen. No big whoop, right? But in a way she was also one. A few years hiding under beds. Then the move here. Feral. She spent ten years in the rafters of the garage. Then she came down to my lap. Which she suddenly decided was her home. And where she died. This afternoon. Just about sunset.

She was in my lap, you see. My wife and I were squabbling about Mozart. I wanted Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A, 2nd movement. My wife wanted to know if I needed to suffer about Cassie more. I said, the way husbands sometimes do, “Do it!” She started the YouTube video and Cassie died immediately upon hearing the first chord. Won’t make any attempt to explain or justify. She just died.

Spare you her sad little face and wasted body. She was fifteen after all. And her brother was my best friend. Why did she glom onto me? Do brothers tell sisters what’s going on in human world? Stop it. Cassie loved me, and I loved her. Now she’s dead, a small wild cat who never knew where she belonged.

Never domesticated. Just like her brother and sister. She was a wild wild thing who just happened to like me.

You know. Seven pounds of dirt and nasty and I’ll scratch your eyes out if you ever lay a hand on me. But this is what she was listening to when she died in my arms.

And when he heard it playing just now, Raebert came running up to join me on the couch. What do all the animals seem to know about Mozart so many humans don’t?

God bless you, Cassie, my dear. I will miss you till the rainbow bridge greyhound folks talk about.