Lady Jane ~ 9-03-06
This weekend while we were away on our final summer camping trip, our old cat Jane, went softly into that dark night. She had been quite sick and so we were not surprised. We had left her in the capable care of good friend Emily a.k.a. kitty hospice care-giver.
It was easy to tell that Jane liked being a cat. She wasn’t high strung or nervous, like some other cats I know (I’m not naming any names). She was comfortable in her own skin, as they say. She was independent and dignified; she always sat with her tail curled tidily around her legs. She disappeared when there was lots of activity, preferring calm and out-of-the-way spaces. She was always small and even in the last months of her life people would mistake her for a kitten. She was spry and graceful and liked to sleep on the top shelf of our closet. As she grew older, getting to that high perch became more difficult, but she managed to find a way, right up until the last few weeks. During the last days of her life, she slept on Isaac’s desk chair, which was probably the highest spot she could manage.
When she was a kitten in our first apartment in Arlington, she liked to sit in the bathroom sink. She continued, throughout her life to show a fondness for porcelain. In the morning when I woke up, Jane almost always joined me in the bathroom. As I sat on the toilet, she would rub against my legs and jump up on the vanity and push her nose into my shoulder. I think we both really cherished those quiet morning times while I was on the crapper.
Like many cats (and children), she vigorously demanded affection when I was busy with something else. If she were here right now, she would be purring loudly and pacing back and forth across my keyboard. When I tried to do yoga in the house she wound herself around my legs and arms and drowned out my Ujjayi breathing with her own form of the victorious breath.
Though she was sweet, Jane was also tenacious. She was, quite clearly, the alpha cat in our household. She made a point of regularly reminding Maggie that she was the boss. If outsider cats dared to come into the yard, Jane became a fierce defender. She rarely fought, but she certainly never backed down. She had a tiny notch on each ear from the few times she’d had to follow up on her powerful intimidation tactics.
Jane loved the outdoors and was often found sitting by the door simply waiting with a Zen-like patience for it to open. She spent long hours away and was known throughout the neighborhood. I often had the experience of working out in the yard with Jane sitting prettily by my side and having passers-by claim that Jane was a frequent visitor to them. “Is this your cat?” they would ask, often with a sort of longing in their voices. They might go on to describe her visits. Sometimes they seemed to be making the case that she might rather live with them. “She really likes our yard,” they would say, “We tell her to go home, but she just wants to stay.” Jane did love to wander, but she always came back to us. Often when I went out to the front porch to call her, she would surface within a few seconds, marching jauntily across the street from the alley or a neighbor’s yard. Though, she maintained an impressive stoicism, I never doubted her affection. She was truly my own cat and we belonged to each other.
Yesterday evening at sunset, we buried Jane’s body in our yard. I wrapped her in a soft cotton night-shirt that I have had for about 20 years and placed her gently into the ground. We each shared a memory or something we would miss about her and we said good-bye. As a monument to her, we planted a Japanese Maple tree to mark the spot where we put her.
The other day, the kids and I read a part in one of the Little House books where Laura’s old dog Jack dies. Pa tells Laura that Jack has gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds. Both kids have questions about where Jane’s spirit might have gone. Eli thinks she is still here wandering around as a kitty-ghost. Hannah thinks she might be off hunting birds somewhere in a celestial grassy field. I don’t ever pretend to have any answers about all of that, but I do understand why people wish for a heaven. It is so awfully painful to lose a friend. I almost wish that I could believe that she still exists somewhere. I guess that’s the reason for the tree. It’s a beautiful, living thing that represents her; Something that I get to keep.