8:30a.m. Dying takes concentration, like birthing. Sparkles is very still, very focused. Her left paw and shoulder reach out and I lie next to her for a long while, holding her paw, feeling the sudden jerks in her body that started at dawn.

Asher got up for school and came and sat by her. I made oatmeal with raisins, cinnamon, brown sugar. The black world turned blue, then pink. I let Asher know that if he wanted to, he could stay home from school, but he decides to go. He doesn’t want to stay for his after-school science club, he says. He goes out the door a few minutes after 7, then texts me: Come outside and look at the sunrise. I bring my camera and don’t even take off my slippers. The eastern sky is a colorful bruise.

I come back in and get some pillows and lie down next to this quiet, intense cat. I look into her eyes for a long time. She is so human to me, something about the loss of control of her cat body has made her spirit even more obvious. I watch her eyes focus then unfocus. Her whiskers are almost completely hanging down. Her eyes squint a little when I talk to her, but her ears don’t move at all. I stroke under her chin and she can’t respond. I tell her, You were so good in this life, you should ask for whatever you want in the next one. Don’t forget you were a nurse cat, a bear, you were Sparkles. I’m going to miss you. We’re all going to miss you. Let’s meet up again some time.

Then I started to cry, thinking that we should bury her under the big spruce tree in the back, so I could always look out the window and see her under the tree, like she was sitting under it in the summer for shade, like she was sleeping under the Christmas tree in the winter.

I watch her chest move ever so slightly with her breath and wait for her last one, but I may fall asleep before she goes.

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