He lived in four countries and saw more of the world than most people. We just put my 19-year-old cat to sleep. I am comforted by the joy and delight of his life and the fact that Jesus wipes the tears from my eyes.

Yes, we put Oreo down this morning. He had been declining steadily over the last six months. The vet said he was in kidney failure, and I had been hydrating him for a couple of months. He also started having seizures which took something out of him with each one. He really declined after the last one. He did not know me or anyone and just meowed as if in pain. He had tremors and couldn’t stand to be petted or held. I think he was really in pain the last few days.

It is a natural part of living — the saying good-bye. In a way, I have been saying good-bye for a long time to him, relishing the moments and realizing this day would come. I take joy in the delight of his life and am so grateful that he lived 19 years! His companionship was a treasure to me through life’s changing seasons. He was constantly at home, constantly affectionate, constantly clinging to me. That is rare.

Once you grasp the fleetingness of life, and it dawns on you in increments as you grow, you are always savoring the sweetness of living and vitality around you– yet always saying good-bye on some level because the gift is so unpredictable and fragile. Still in the midst of all this romance of embrace and release, the irrevocable finality of death is shocking, even the forever loss of a non-eternal creature like an animal.