For the record

She was a scrawny thing of rather advanced years but with a young coat. Very fond of attention, she loved to be picked up, held, cuddled, petted. She could sit on your lap for hours in complete contentment. A truly quiet contentment, too: Her purr was so soft you could barely hear it.

She was a rescue: A woman had been taking care of a large number of cats and when she was hit by a car and killed last year her brother wanted to dispose of the cats as quickly as possible so he could sell the house. He was prepared to have them all euthanized by the end of the month. The local Humane Society - and, as it turned out, a former neighbor of mine - worked to find homes for them all in the time available.

So we went and we looked and knowing that already having three cats (not to mention the two dogs) we dared only take one more, we chose her. I think partly because of the fact that as soon as you picked her up, she just settled into your arms.

She'd been named Trudy, but we renamed her Vala, short for Vala Mal Doran, because she was the last to join the group. (You're our kind of people if you know what that means.)

So she had a home and the other cats had to make their adjustments. We accurately predicted the responses of two of them: One just kind of stayed away from her, exuding aloof irritation at the interloper; a second just shrugged as if to say "yeah, another one, BFD." The third, to our surprise, was hostile, growling at Vala whenever the two were anywhere near each other, even if Vala was looking and/or going the other way.

She ran up some vet bills and wound up on a couple of medicines but seemed to be doing okay - she even gained some weight and her coat, which had become coarse, become softer and fuller. And she certainly loved her attention. I would pick her up and hold her near my left shoulder and she would grab on and climb up until the top half of her body was draped over my shoulder and she had a full view of the world behind me. And in that position her purr was just loud enough for me to hear.

She died today.

She had been acting oddly the end of last week and we were thinking it was "her time." My wife said she hadn't been eating and had refused her medicine (which was flavored and she had enjoyed). She had taken to spending her time either behind the TV table or in a corner of the hallway by the office.

Even so, I had seen her drink and use the litter box - and when she perked up over the weekend, coming to me while I was getting washed in the morning, meowing to get petted, I thought that maybe she just hadn't been feeling well for a couple of days. I was wrong.

It was surprisingly fast: Just this morning, there she was again, coming into the bathroom looking for attention. I went to work in the afternoon, getting home about 9PM. I found her on the floor of the second bathroom, stretched out against the tub. She seemed to be trying to get up in response to my entrance, but couldn't. I picked up what proved to be little more than a rag doll and carried her to the living room, where I sat on the couch with her across my lap. My wife told me that shortly before I'd gotten in, she's seen Vala walk unsteadily across the house toward the office.

I let her lie there across my lap until I had to shift position. When I did, Vala also shifted herself, settling in between my arm and my stomach in what seemed to be a comfortable position.

And right there, over the next half-hour or so and not 12 hours since she was walking into the bathroom, interrupting my getting washed by meowing to be petted, she fell silent, took a few intermittent deep breaths, and just drifted away.

So I think that's all I'm going to say tonight.

Oh, except to say James, I know how you feel.