MandyCat: 3.2002 – 12.31.2016

Status Report 247

I look to the cat
see if her abdomen still moves with breath.

She is not here, yet not there,
my heart, hurt, hung between.

– Smith, 1.1.2017

Never killed someone I loved before.

We euthanized MandyCat yesterday. Should have been a day earlier because she was suffering, but I didn’t know enough to make the right decision.

I knelt down to her level, held her paw, looked her in the eye and told her it was okay. She looked me back in the eye trustingly until the medicine hit her and she looked away, surprised.

Now just this huge emptiness left in our lives and our apartment – a rather large emptiness for such a small creature.

She lived her first 7 years with poet/cat lady Wendy Shaffer, her last 8 years with us.

MandyCat: 3.2002 – 12.31.2016