Thank You for the Beautiful Life
The phone rings. I see the vet clinic’s number and my throat goes dry. I feel a jolt of anxiety. Although there can be no more bad news, I don’t want to talk to them. I just want all this to go away, to be one of my nightmares. “Mosi’s ashes are ready for pickup,” says the receptionist softly.
It’s only been a few days since we walked out of the clinic, for the first time ever without you. Feeling dizzy, I closed my eyes and clutched your gray bed, the one we’d used to bring you for this final appointment, not wishing to disturb you by moving you to a carrier. You lifted your head weakly as I settled with you in the back seat of the car. I whispered, “I’ve got you. You are so loved.”
I was with you until the end. I heard the vet say, “She’s telling you she’s done fighting.” I gently murmured our little lullaby while the vet quietly worked. They say hearing is the last sense to go as we die. I kept whispering, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” The vet put a stethoscope to your chest, said, “she needs a little more,” and left the room to get the medicine. It felt like my heart would stop too.
And it’s only the other day that the kind woman from the crematorium called to discuss the details of what was to be done with your remains. Would we like a wake? Did we want to be present for the cremation? Did we want photos? What about a paw print, or some of your fur, for memory? I was terrified of someone touching you disrespectfully. I asked for details of every step. She reassured me, “We have a young woman who prepares the animals for cremation. She brushes them and talks to them. She’s very sweet. We never change the position they passed away in. Don’t worry, Mosi will be treated with respect.” About you, she said, “What a beautiful cat. I can tell she was loved.” Feeling like my heart would explode if I didn’t talk about you, I told her that you were twenty-one, shared the meaning of your name, mentioned your life, full of adventure. I need to talk about you. Talking about you keeps you here for a little while longer.
She asked for a photo for the small glass votive holder included in the cremation package. I sent one of my favorites: you, settled on the couch, in a nest of the soft white and purple scarf. You were probably waiting for a snack or may have just finished ‘saying’ something. You are looking right at the camera. It’s a lucky shot. You didn’t like being photographed.
“I’m coming,” I say into the phone to the vet clinic’s receptionist waiting quietly for my answer. I silently register surprise that it’s already done. Things are moving too fast. I still see you everywhere I look, a tiny shadow of gray and white with huge, intelligent green eyes. I still have your insulin alarms programmed in my watch, the app where we tracked your sugar levels, the notebook in which I recorded your medicines and food intake, and, most importantly, your state of mind – your “Mosiness,” as I called it.
Most days, your Mosiness was off the charts. You trotted on your thin, arthritic legs, tail held high, eyes bright, turning to glance at me, to make sure I followed. You let me know when you were hungry. You didn’t hesitate to climb into my lap as soon as I sat down. You watched the pigeons outside and claimed the coziest beds. Your beds and blankets are still everywhere. The house seems empty and far too quiet. I feel your absence in my bones. Life doesn’t seem real, and I don’t want to be here.
As soon as I push open the heavy entrance door to the clinic, the receptionist quietly stands up from her desk and walks over to the large room opposite. The door is ajar, and I can see floor-to-ceiling shelves; it’s where they keep special-order food and, apparently, crematorium deliveries. She doesn’t need to ask why I’m here. She knows me. They all do. Over the past couple of years, and especially in the last few months, I’ve come here often for food, medicine, or to drop off a sample for analysis. They know you too. You were their oldest patient, the miracle senior cat with curious, alert eyes, who defied the odds over and over, snacked in the waiting room, and had oversized, rarely seen in Europe mitten paws with double thumbs.
The receptionist quietly hands me a heavy white paper bag with woven handles, the kind you get at a shopping mall, the crematorium’s name, Amicitia (“friendship”), written in blue cursive on the sides. I can’t look at it. I can’t exhale. It feels like there’s a weight inside my chest, heavy, like a block of cement, dense with all the tears I’ve not yet cried; it’s hard to breathe.
I don’t want to fall apart here, in front of other clients waiting with their animals. Over the years of veterinary visits, I’ve seen people leave with empty carriers and folded-up leashes, faces streaked with tears. I wanted to hold them, tell them I understood. I also silently whispered a prayer of thanks that it wasn’t my turn. Not that day. And now my turn had come.
I step out into the sunny street. Everything seems distant, the sounds are muffled, and I don’t quite know what I am supposed to do next. It feels like I am watching this day from afar, in slow motion. I run into one of your vets. Her hair has more silver than usual, and she smells of cigarettes. She hugs me, tells me in a mix of broken English and her native French “You did well. You put your life between parentheses for her. I’ve not seen anyone do that before.” She says you probably also knew the time had come. I nod and hug her back, thank her for caring for you.
Her words wash over me. I don’t believe her. I know I should have done more, should have done something to keep you safe, to bring you home from that last, quiet visit on a sunny Monday last week, not your oversized soft bed, but you, my tiny, furry, alive you. I can’t stand being here. I refuse to allow any of this to be real.
At home, I unpack the paper bag. There is a black velvet pouch with the urn I selected. White ceramic, quietly elegant: a cat’s head resting gently in the palm of a human hand. It is fitting. You loved resting your head on my palm, and I would laugh at how trusting you were. You knew that I would sit, unmoving, holding my hand up while you napped, as long as it took. The urn is delicate and awful. I place it on a shelf in the living room, where I can see you every day.
The bag also includes a small votive holder, a page with your paw prints in ink, and a little glass vial with your fur, a tiny plastic cat charm tied around the cap. I don’t know how to feel about these, but I’m desperate to have something of you to touch. There’s also a promotional leaflet informing me that I can order memorial jewelry with your pawprints, and a glossy folded card with your photo. I see your face, your huge green eyes looking right into my heart. I read the inscription: “Thank you for the beautiful life.” Your name is signed below. And I dissolve in tears. It’s all wrong.
It was you who gave me such a beautiful life. You were so full of love, courage, and presence. You held onto life with your outsized mitten paws, not letting age or disease stop you from jumping on your favorite sunny spots, asking for tasty food, claiming a warm lap (or chest), chasing butterflies, fishing, or crossing streams, as you did on our last vacation together. You were larger than life.
Since you died, time hasn’t followed its usual arc. Every day is the day you died, as the details of that day and the heartbreaking days and nights that preceded it play on repeat in my mind. Could something have been done? What really happened? Sometimes I think none of this is happening, and I will wake up and find you right here, on my chest, hugging my neck with your paws, our noses touching, your whiskers tickling my cheeks. And we will stay close, always, and nothing bad will ever happen to you. I close my eyes and open them again, but nothing changes.
After seventeen years together, years of love and closeness, hugs, naps cheek-to-cheek and nose-to nose, hands and paws intertwined, conversations, and so many adventures, I don’t know what to do. My life has revolved around you for so long, especially over these final years of diabetes and other scares, with sleepless nights, rushing back from wherever I was to check on you, and agonizing over care decisions. Each time I returned home, I’d fly up the stairs to the living room, where you waited, feeling relief wash over me as I heard your voice. I’d hold you gently, burying my face in your soft fur and whispering “I’m home, I love you.”
I’m lost without you.
I am told that death does not end our relationship, that I should look for ways to continue loving you and feeling your presence, that the sadness that fills my heart isn’t the only place to find you. But that’s what I feel: you live in my sadness. That’s where I find our connection. When I think of you and of what was lost, huge, hot tears roll down my face.
Over a year has passed, and I am getting used to living with my chest full of this heavy, desperate, dark blue sadness. I wrap myself in your white and yellow fleece blanket, the one I gave you for Easter, the one in which you spent your final days. I close my eyes and turn away from the world. I paint my grief, filling page after page with dark colors bleeding into one another: inky blue for sadness, red for love, black for regret.
And I write. I write all sorts of things: poems, stories, memories, and most often - notes to you, which I fold and deposit into a large glass jar decorated in your memory. A string of fairy lights illuminates the jar from within, like you lit up my heart.
I can’t talk to anyone about how I feel. No one would understand, not really. A year has gone by. Shouldn’t the hurt have stopped? Who were we to each other? Why does losing you still feel so unbearable? And now I know. We mothered each other. We shared years of love, laughter, and adventure. And when you became old and frail, I was happy to take care of you, talk to you, brush you gently, as your skin and fur became brittle from age and diabetes. Sleep on the floor next to you, giving you water every hour when you were sick. Set my alarm for 3 a.m. to check your blood sugar. Carry you in my arms when your arthritis made taking the stairs difficult. Warm up your food to encourage your appetite and wipe your face with heated baby wipes to help keep your fur clean.
And you, you mothered me too. A sensitive child rejected by my mother, all I’ve always wanted was to be held. You held me. You sat on my chest and gathered me in your oversized paws. You stretched out to connect, curled up on my lap, head nestled in my hand. Through good times and bad, accidents, heartaches, and big life changes. Tears were shed into your fur, confidences shared.
You knew me better than anyone. You made me feel safe and loved. You made things right. You were my home. Thank you for the beautiful life.
Katia Colitti
Katia Colitti grew up in Ukraine. She is a lawyer and writer now living in Brussels, Belgium with her husband and their elderly cat. Her professional degrees include a JD and an MSc in animal welfare. Her work has been published in legal and scientific journals and an essay is forthcoming in Months To Years. Katia’s writing reflects on grief, loss, and love.