Pinky in 2001

I had to put Pinky down on Thursday last. At eighteen, she'd done well to survive as long.

It was relatively quick, her last illness. The close-up picture above was her last one. It was taken two weks before her death, as she lay in the sunlight where I'd placed her. And like many of humankind's elderly ladies of faded beauty, Pinky worked hard to remain lovely, I think, by a very purposeful intent.

Shortly after that, she became more and more quiet, began to eat less, but never ceased loving me. On the last, her only pleasure was to be held in my lap, to be taken to her favorite places, the window in morning, the sofa at night. And when she could no longer walk, I carried her.

It was kidney failure, a problem that seems to carry off many of the older cats. The doctor assumed that we might catch it in time, but after two days on her medication, I found her in the morning, where she had fallen in her litter box. She was too weak to get back to her bed, and she cried pathetically for me to lift her out. She always had a sense of dignity that even death couldn't alter.

I told Nancy that we'd done all we could, that I felt somewhat better because I'd taken her to the vet only two days before, and I had given her old body every possible chance to survive. Her time had come, no question, and I told her that Pinky was dying.

I put her in her crate and took her out of the house for the first time in the seven years that we have lived here. On the way, she roused herself from her half-sleep of two days and talked to me continually, all the way down. A sort of benediction, I think. I placed a finger through the cage and she licked it as she always did, an affection conferred on nobody else. I knew I was special.

And Pinky was very special. The only cat I've ever seen who would sit up like a squirrel or chipmunk and talk endlessly.

I'm glad that God took her back. But he could have given her no more love than I did, for eighteen years.

In Loving Memory of Pinky
1983 - November 15, 2001

Copyright © Frank Pierce
November 20, 2001