On November 9, Tillie, who had lived with me just short of 17 years, died. She had been showing her age for a while. She was plagued by chronic ear infections, which caused deafness, she was partially blind, and was beginning to move slowly. That last day Tilly stopped being able to walk, her ear was bleeding, and she would lay and whimper. She was telling me very clearly that she was sick, and that it might be her time. The vet very kindly told me that she wasn’t going to get better, so I chose to let her go.

In another life time, December 31, 1996 to be exact, I went to the shelter with the boy I lived with. We wanted a second cat, but not a young kitten. We sat in the shelter for a long time until a small tortie with many toes climbed into Nick’s lap. She purred, flirted, and allowed herself to be petted. The shelter worker came in, shocked that Tillie was visible let alone sitting with someone. She told us that we were allowed to adopt no one else, because Tillie had been there a long time and had never appeared when adopters came around.

I was never her choice, but I kept her all those years, and we lived in agreement. I would feed her and she would let me cuddle her. When Shannon moved in she was ecstatic. She allowed him to pill her and would purr happily at his feet. The kids made her nervous, but that didn’t stop her from jumping in A’s crib or toddler bed to cuddle.  A wasn’t a huge fan, because Tillie’s cataracts made her nervous, but lately she has been asking about her, and hoping that she is happy. It has been really difficult to describe death and what it means, without evoking heaven.

Tillie was the last of the two cats I adopted in another lifetime. When hearing about TIllie’s death, my friend Kara wrote, “I feel it an end of our youth as well.” I think there is probably some truth to that.

It has been lonely here without her. A newly acquired goldfish helped a bit, but not totally.