Today Romeo died. For several days he has been lingering, living… yet dying. We kept thinking he must be dead, but then he would breathe or meow or look at us. We would stroke him, talk to him and cover him up so he would be warm. We tried to give him water to keep him from having a dry mouth. We offered him warm moist food in case he was hungry. But he couldn’t eat or drink.

We all shared our memories of our fun ornery mischievous cat. He was special to us all. Today when he died, we arranged him in his box one last time and went out to dig a grave. There was some discussion about where to bury him. It was finally decided that he should rest by the front gate where he often sat and watched the world go by. We moved the big rocks there and the kids dug a hole. They squabbled some about whose turn it was to dig and I had to solve a few fights. But in the end the hole was dug, the box was closed, and the dirt was mounded on the grave. We pressed the dirt down and moved the rocks back into place as grave markers. I told the children they could paint the rocks in memory of Romeo. Isaac spent some time alone there after everyone else scattered. He came in later to report that he had carved Romeo’s name on a rock with his knife.

We’ve had some somber moments and some funny ones over the past few days. Mike first said, “We can’t let him die!” After we told him that it was exactly what we were doing he asked, “Are we going to give him to the garbage man?” Once Romeo’s fate was settled Mike declared, “We need to go to Walmart and get a new cat!”

Another time Laura was sitting by Romeo crying, and he picked up his head and looked right at her with clear eyes. She then told me how anytime she would cry Romeo would come find her and try to comfort her by rubbing his head on her face. It sure seemed like Romeo was wanting to do that again as she sat by his bed crying.

Isaac faithfully carried Romeo upstairs and downstairs to be near the family while he was lingering. Joyce encouraged us to just let Romeo die peacefully and not try to speed up his demise. We all felt bad for him and kept checking on him, wondering when the end would come.

Now he’s really gone. Finally.

Life and death walk hand in hand.