Sometimes, long after my calico cat Jasperina died, I still cry.
At times I wonder why little Jaspie’s death affects me so deeply, and I keep coming back to the same answer: Her passing reminds me of my own mortality, our mortality. It’s that simple and that hard to accept.
Jaspie accepted death bravely, just as she lived her short life, never dodging a chance to sneak outdoors or to run away with the dog’s big toy mouse.
It was the Monday after Thanksgiving three years ago. We had just returned from spending the holiday with relatives in Chicago and had left our cats with a veterinarian because Jaspie was growing weak with age.
Our vet called that morning. Jaspie apparently had suffered a stroke. We rushed to the clinic and said our goodbyes.
Jaspie looked at me as I cradled her in a blanket. She talked in her sweet but weak voice. And as she fell asleep that final time, her eyes were still wide open.
I don’t know what, if anything, she saw during those final moments.
Maybe she dreamed of chasing birds and jumping onto the highest of branches. And unlike short-sighted humans, maybe her eyes were still strong enough to see us meeting again, her rubbing her soft fur against me once more; me again carrying her to her dinner table or trying to lure her out of our cluttered garage full of cobwebs and hiding places.
Some say reunions like that happen on the other side of the “rainbow bridge.” It helps to believe that, to hope, for my heart sees what my aging eyes and reality do not: a young cat full of energy and life and a young ambitious woman with many years and opportunities ahead.
Jaspie had big green eyes, always curious. She wore a coat of gray, black, and white. She was curvaceous until old age beckoned and she ate less and less. In her youth, she was a warrior, always watching out for Blackie, the smaller, less brave cat, the one Jaspie had protected, perhaps even mothered, before they were strays visiting our backyard.
When we later brought home a small dog, Jaspie knew it was up to her to protect Blackie once again. So, whenever our dog Shadow, aka Shady Lady,chasedBlackiethroughthehouse, Jaspie would join the chase, going after Shady. And Shady would invariably surrender after a few snorts and barks.
But as the years passed, old age came along and replaced Jaspie’s brisk but waddling walk with a limp. Her steps became fewer and slower. She no longer wasted her energy on the chase. She now welcomed a helping hand, a lift, a gentle pat.
The day Jaspie left this earth, she purred and looked at me as the veterinarian’s sedation calmed her. Like her eyes, her spirit remained big, beautiful and open.
Now I’m an aging woman with a broken marriage and a sometimes sad but not broken heart.
My hair is not the reddish brown it was in my 30s. It’s gray and white with strands of reddish-brown. It’s not long, not short, but much of it is lost, perhaps forever—just as the thyroid I first struggled with at age 16 is rebelling again in my seventh decade.
It’s said that men often ignore older women. But try as they might, they cannot ignore me, the woman with the wild hair, the loud voice, the strong opinions, the short temper.
My skin is wrinkled. Bruises and brown spots hide the freckles of my youth. The thyroidectomy scar is faint now; the heart scar is fresh, ugly, life-saving, a constant reminder of my age.
In a moment my teeth, already mere fragments of once pearly white caps, became shards of porcelain scattered beneath my head on a cold tile floor. Denture plates replaced them, leaving me without the unguarded smile of my youth.
My ears hear the tornado sirens but often miss the words of knowledge and laughter. “What was that?” I ask. “Never mind,” she says. “Never mind,” he says. “It wasn’t important,” they say.
My thoughts are not always clear, much less scientific. I see gray more than black and white these days. I feel doubt more than certainty, love more than hate. I’ve grown increasingly liberal, perhaps because I’ve lived long enough to see the sins in all of us, even the holiest, and especially in myself.
I yearn for the ecumenical rather than the evangelical, open arms instead of cages and barbed-wire fences. I do not speak of religion when I use those terms. Instead, I refer to the way we treat our fellow citizens, not of the United States but of this world, the earth that I believe God created, the one we share with Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists; rich and poor; peasants and presidents.
I am a lucky woman. My family is small but close, something I value more with each passing year, each major illness, each death, whether close to home or far away. Do I have regrets? Yes, I would live my life far differently if I could start over and know what I now know.
But I’m still grateful for the many good parts of my life: my parents, my sister, my daughter, the grandparents I’m only now starting to understand and appreciate fully as I too get old.
Sometimes I’m brave like Jaspie. I’ll venture alone into the darkness, not knowing who or what lies ahead. And sometimes I’m like Blackie, afraid of what lies ahead, even as the sun shines its brightest shortly before sunset.
Debra Hale-Shelton can be reached at dhaleshelton@gmail.com . Follow her on Twitter at @nottalking.