Goodnight

It’s hard to say, when you get a cat from the Humane Society. They don’t really know for sure how old they are, but they said she was about 1 year old. We know that it was the summer of our nephew’s 13th birthday. And so there is complicated math, or trying to remember which year that was, or which year our nephew was born, or how old he is now… But our cat Isis was 20 years old this year, and that means she was with us for 19 years.

Her name—Isis—is a little unfortunate, given the world events the last few years. She is, of course, named after the ancient Egyptian goddess of the underworld, and she acted the part. We sometimes called her “The Princess of Everything”.

Isis, the Princess of Everything

It was only by chance that Isis came to live with us. She was quarantined for a cold at the Humane Society, which postponed our first chance to meet her and begin the process of adoption. After the quarantine expired, a misunderstanding or poor communication or computer glitch resulted in her being adopted by someone else before we were contacted. Isis was subsequently renamed “Penny” (likely because of her beautiful gold and copper-colored eyes) by her new owner, who obviously did not recognize her status as a goddess. Isis meowed far too much for the neighbors when she was left alone for most of the day in the apartment, and so after two weeks the owner returned her to the Humane Society which, in turn, called us to see if we were still interested. We were, and my wife rushed over to pick up Isis and bring her home the week that our nephew had come to stay with us, during the summer of his 13th birthday. She was adorable and sociable and loving and beautiful and complicated and playful and stately. We restored her original name, only referring to her as Penny when she was a little too imperious or fickle.

She liked to play a game of hide and seek with my wife: they chased each other around the house in turns, looking and listening carefully to discern which room the other might have crept into. Isis developed a nighttime ritual involving sitting on my chest while I lay in bed reading: she would first lick my nose repeatedly, then nuzzle my chin and cheeks (usually smudging my glasses in the process) before finally laying down in a position that might have allowed me to continue reading if my glasses had not recently become opaque. She would also occasionally sprint the length of the house, up the front stairs, down the hallway and down the back stairs for no apparent reason. (She continued this until as recently as a couple of months ago, although not with the same celerity or grace.) Around this time of year, she would have a habit of curling up on the floor vents of our old house when the heat would kick in—never mind that her favorites were in the high-traffic areas of the kitchen. She loved napping in the breezeway, no matter how hot it was in summer and much longer into Autumn than you might expect. I would sometimes cradle her and carry her into the house if she was still lounging there after dinner. And she would find me and sit with me at any time of year when, sleepless, I would read in the middle of the night.

She had slowed down the last couple of years. She no longer jumped into and out of the tall kitchen recycling bin every week when I emptied it. She became deaf, which we did not really notice at first, (after all, a cat-goddess may simply be ignoring you) but she was increasingly more vocal, much louder and nearly oblivious to us when she wasn’t looking at us. She walked fine, but was taking more time going up and down the stairs, favoring one of her front legs just a little, and hopping with her back legs. We put little stools by couches and chairs for her and bought steps so she could get into bed with us more easily.

But then she started having trouble breathing and had fits of wheezing and coughing. And then came the cancer diagnosis. We knew the time would come, of course, and we dreaded it. We had lost one of our other cats, Hobbes, early on in the pandemic but my secret hope was that it would be resolved before we had to consider how to let Isis go. Selfishly, I just wanted her to help us get through this; to just have a little space between…

But we couldn’t abide the strain and effort of her breathing when fluid began to fill the pleura around her lungs a second time. We arranged for a veterinarian to come to our home: she was profoundly compassionate and as skilled as anyone I’ve ever dealt with. Isis was able to die at home with both family and dignity.

Each pet is different, but Isis was different. There are unfathomable depths of loss and grief I have only seen from a distance, but I’ve had some little experience. There seems to be a different quality to feeling a simple loss: one that you can, unfairly or for some unreasonable reason, grasp and manage without too much distraction. And then there are the losses that persist somehow, that linger and deepen before they lift and recede. In this case, it is losing a friend with whom you’ve built ordinary, daily routines; one who brought you comfort by simply sitting quietly with you late at night when you could not sleep.

Good night, Isis. We will love you always.