Goodbye, A.V.

“Euthanasia - small.” That’s what the receipt from the vet reads, a concise summary to this morning's sadness. Of course, the burial followed, behind the rectory, with full feline honors from a visiting cat in the tree above the garage. It was a bit hot for digging, but the grave was dug, and Augusta Victoria, our companion from kittenhood on for almost fifteen years, was committed to the earth.

Augusta was a most sociable cat, no stand-offish empress as her name might suggest, but fully aware that noblesse often obliges mingling with the common folk, just to let them know that she has the interest of the plebs at heart.

And a warm heart she had, and great affection, and she will be much missed. Over the last year as her kidneys failed she lost sixty percent of her weight, and over the last two weeks had lost even more, and over the last two days had given up even on eating, and was stumbling in her walking and even as she stood at her water-bowl to drink. It was time, and a sad time it was.

I know it is sentimental to dwell on such things, but I take comfort in something C.S. Lewis once wrote about how just as we are made more than we are in Christ as we share in his life, so too the animals who share in our lives become more than they otherwise would be. Human beings are doubly blessed to have a God who shows us so much love from above, while creatures such as this show us so much love from below. May we be made worthy of that love, by that love.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG