When we arrived at the animal hospital, her breathing was shockingly ragged. I don’t know what I expected, but I’d swear that one of the assistants there said Pinkie was more alert and active. It crossed my mind that somehow we might find ourselves bringing her home, that somehow she’d recover, get better, get back to her old self. But that wasn’t going to happen.

When they brought her into the room where we were waiting, it was immediately obvious that the time had come. Pinkie could no longer move her limbs, no longer even raise her head, unsteadily or not. She rasped with each breath as her tongue poked out of her mouth, her fur was matted from sweating, her breath smelled of death’s imminence, its cloying intimacy. I had to walk outside.

I went to the car for a cigarette, got in and burst out in choking sobs. After a minute or three, I pulled myself together as best I could and went back in. My beloved, Kisha, was doing her level best to hold herself together. Left alone with Pinkie, we agreed that it was time to put her to sleep, that waiting would be cruel, that there was nothing to be gained by putting it off. We both went outside to try and collect our wits, to try to draw sustaining breath from the world. We were both breaking, knowing that a few minutes were all that was left to share with an irreplaceable companion, a good and sweet-natured cat who never did anything wrong to anyone, who loved us in her feline way on a par with the love of those who lived with her. Seventeen years – 84 cat years – were about to be gone in a few slow blinks of tear-blurred eyes, cast forevermore in terms of the past, in the context of memories. We held each other there for awhile, and then we walked back in.

We knelt by the table she was laid upon and spoke sweet nothings to her, whispered promises to never forget her and of our love for her. She was our girl, our sweetest cat, Kisha’s for the duration of her life, mine for far too short a time. We petted her, soothed her, and watched the doctor slip the needle into the I.V. link sticking out of her left front leg. He pushed the plunger slowly, and for a moment nothing happened. Then – and we both saw it – Pinkie seemed to widen her eyes in understanding, as if saying, “Oh… so it’s time, now. Okay. Okay, then”. And then she just slowed down, her breathing eased, and then she just… stopped. I watched the life leave her eyes. It wasn’t like she was extinguished, really. It was like she just dispersed into the world like a breath.

I will always love Pinkie. I will always hate this day.

If you would like to read what my beloved had to say about it, please visit her blog, Wunderkammen.com.