Tabitha Grace

My darling cat Tabitha has become very old almost overnight. Her narrow shoulders slope downward the way an old man or woman’s shoulders would. When she sits down with me on the porch of my apartment where we feel the sea breezes, she circles around her soft bed and tucks her legs gently down under her with perfect delicacy. I can almost feel the arthritic pain. I wince knowing that, I too, will be her age someday and having been a runner for most of my life, I will feel this pain. She moves so slowly, but with intention. Her spirit is strong.

When I leave her to go about my daily errands it is difficult to just quickly leave. I stoop down, touch her, and tell her how much she is loved.  I believe that we often learn unconditional love from our animals. I know Tabitha has taught me all about love and caring for all creatures and humans. 

On April 28 she left this earth. I was with her and read to her from the Book of Common Prayer: “This we know: every living thing is yours and returns to you. As we ponder this mystery we give you thanks for the life of Tabitha Grace and we now commit her into your loving hands. Gentle God: fragile is your world, delicate are your creatures, and costly is your love which bears and redeems us all.

It is hard some days to accept this loss, but I know that her life was getting to be difficult. I am very grateful for her love, companionship and beauty. She taught me patience as  she faced her difficulties in old age — especially her loss of sight from hypertension. Recently I lost my glasses and I realized on a small scale what it would be like if my sight was impaired even for an evening.  An acute fear crept over me until I retraced my steps and found them at the car wash. I had that wonderful exhilaration of “finding a lost object.”  I found Tabitha — her lovely photograph advertised on the Greenwich Village Animal Hospital — and I knew she was mine. The exhilaration of finding will her will always be close to be.