Sometimes, if you’re really lucky, grace can find you in a parking lot. That’s what happened to me almost 17 years ago when somebody picked up a scrawny feral tabby kitten and dropped it off at my veterinarian’s clinic. A friend who knew I was considering adopting a kitty was in the vet’s office that week and saw her. She immediately thought of me and picked me up to “just” have a look and, well, you know how that turned out. I had to say goodbye to my furry best friend a few weeks ago and my heart still feels like a bag of sawdust. I know you know.

The staff at the vet’s office had named her Tiffany because the markings around her neck resembled a necklace. I appreciated their creativity, but that sounded like a stripper name to me. And besides, I have a tradition of naming cats after towns in Maine. My first cat as a grown-up was named Kittery and she lived to be almost 20. I love Maine and it just feels like a good luck charm to give a kitty a Maine name. I settled on Castine – Cassie for short. A cat’s name should be very singable and Cassie fit the bill perfectly. The vet’s office had estimated that her birthday was March 17^th – St. Paddy’s Day – another good omen.

Our first night together, I lost her. Well, she lost me to be more accurate. She was frightened and crawled into a tiny opening in the back of an end table drawer. I gathered a search party of a handful of friends and we scoured my house for an hour before I pulled out the drawer and found her – a tiny furry ball in the corner. I put her in my bed that night and that’s where she slept for the first few years. We quickly bonded – she let me pet her but she was never happy being in my lap. Spending your first formative months in a parking lot had to be tough, so I respected her boundaries. Funny sidebar: Cassie never looked back once she became an inside cat. I could have left all the doors in the house wide open all night and she would never even step on the threshold. Unlike Adele, Cassie was never going to say hello from the outside again.

But here’s the thing, you can take the kitty out of the parking lot, but it’s really hard to take the parking lot out of the kitty. Cassie was always sweet to me, but she was never going to win Miss Congeniality (understatement). Her standard greeting to other people was a wicked hiss – very intimidating and rather impressive coming from a relatively tiny body. Most of my friends were terrified of her which presented a challenge when I needed someone to feed her when I was out of town. Luckily, my devoted friends Barb and Linda were brave enough to volunteer for this daunting assignment. They have a really good sense of humor and have a running gag of staging two Barbie dolls, the “girls” as they are known, at special occasions like Super Bowl parties and birthdays. One year, I was on the way home from spending time with my sister when Barb and Linda texted me a picture of the Barbies, bloodied and bandaged, with an update on Cassie. I almost cracked a rib laughing and I will never delete that photo from my phone.

Cassie had no use for other animals either. In fact, she could literally scare the shit out of them. My dear friend Lynn has a darling Shih Tzu named Cagney who is the sweetest and friendliest creature on four legs. One day years ago, Lynn and Cagney were over – Lynn was fixing something for me in another room – and Cagney jingled into the sunroom – not seeing that Cassie was perched by the corner of the couch. Cassie released a long chilling hiss and Cagney leapt into the air and out popped one dainty little turd. I did a swift pickup with a paper towel and it was years before I shared the story with Lynn because I knew she would have been mortified.

I always warned people to simply ignore Cassie when they came over – don’t make eye contact I would tell them. Most people thought they would be the one to win her over. Oh, they were so foolish. A mere human is no match for a cat with an attitude. My dear wife was one of the few who took my counsel to heart. Cassie was six when we started dating and my wife literally did not look at her for the first couple of months we were together. And then she started feeding her – a very wise strategy. Also, Cassie never liked big energy – she was less threatened by people who were calm and peaceful – like my wife. She hated my sister (see WAY BIG ENERGY) – which was sad because my sister adores cats. When I told my sister that I was marrying my wife, the first thing she said to me was, “Thank God. Now I won’t have to take care of Cassie if anything happens to you.” True story.

Cassie may have been challenging (okay, threatening) to others, but she was my cat and I was her person. She was my touchstone through some turbulent times and while I might have been making a mess of my life, she was the one constant I could count on, offering me unconditional love every day. She always seemed to know when I needed her to pay more attention to me. I remember times when I was alone and feeling sad and I’d be lying on the couch and she would jump up and lay on the curve of my hip. I couldn’t tell if it was me or her purring when she did that. And she would often be waiting for me in the front window when I came home from work. Her bright eyes saved me on some dark nights.

Cassie made me laugh, too. She talked a lot and we talked to each other a lot. And my wife and I made up lots of Cassie songs – changing the lyrics to well-known tunes. One of our favorites was Copacabana – Her name was Cassie, she was a show kitty – you know the rest. And whenever we were traveling somewhere we usually gave Cassie a nickname to match our destination. When we went to the British Isles this past summer, Cassie became Cassie O’Lassie. The best one was when we went to Paris and Cassie’s name for the weeks leading up to our departure was Cassoulet. We were so amused with ourselves and Cassie mildly tolerated our shenanigans.

Here’s another true story. The first Thanksgiving we were together, my wife and I went to Columbus, OH to visit Big Energy sister. We were in a beautiful gift shop in German Village the day after Thanksgiving – Christmas decorations were up and holiday music was playing. It could have been the setting for a Hallmark movie. We were standing close to each other and I whispered to my wife, “I want to live with you.” She responded immediately, “Then come live with me. Besides, no one is going to buy your house with Cassie in it.” She was right and Cassie and I packed up the U-Haul and moved to Winston Salem from Greensboro.

That was the last time Cassie was in a car until a few weeks ago. Getting her into a cat carrier was like capturing Saddam Hussein. I was lucky that she was never sick and rarely was exposed to other animals, so I did not subject her – or me – to regular vet visits. In late October, we noticed that she was not eating her dry food. We figured she had grown tired of it as cats are known to do sometimes. She was still eating her wet food with gusto and acting normally – even getting the zoomies a couple of times a week. And then I noticed that her mouth looked a little funny and she was drooling – something was wrong. I googled all of these symptoms and concluded she must have a bad tooth. A good friend, who is a veterinarian and a crazy cat lady in all the best ways, referred me to her vet. And I will never be able to thank her enough for that. So, I made an appointment with Dr. Fox – what a great name for a vet – and my wonderful wife rearranged her schedule to leave work a couple of hours early to help me. Our plan to take Cassie by surprise and get her into the carrier was as intricate as the invasion of Normandy. My wife would text me when she left work, then I would quietly but swiftly lift Cassie off of our bed and into the carrier that was sitting on the bedside table. My wife would be in front of our condo with the engine running. We had one chance – there are no do-overs when it comes to capturing a cat.

Looking back on it now, I think Cassie knew her days were numbered. She was not very upset when I nabbed her and only cried a little bit when I put her in the backseat so I could sit by her while my wife drove. Her eyes were as big as saucers, but I kept talking to her and she seemed surprisingly calm. We were lucky that there were no other animals in the waiting room and we were led to an exam room right away. Cassie was okay until the very sweet vet tech came in and introduced himself. He barely got his name out when she startled him with her signature hiss. Fortunately, he was able to control his bowels and asked us several questions. He told us he would take her to the back to weigh her and then the vet would examine her. A few minutes later, we heard what sounded like a small mountain lion screaming. Cassie was having no part of that plan.

Dr. Fox, who looks like a warmer, more huggable version of Nicole Kidman, came in and introduced herself and told us that she would not be able to examine Cassie while she was conscious. No kidding. She told us she would put her in an induction chamber and she would quickly fall asleep and then she could take a look inside her mouth. She left us and then we heard some more screeching – Cassie was not going down without a fight – and then an eerie quiet. Dr. Fox returned and showed us pictures inside Cassie’s mouth. Her teeth were fine, but she was concerned with a thickened area below the gum line of Cassie’s lower left jaw that looked like it could be a growth that is usually cancer.

Fucking cancer. I could feel my heart pounding and I tried not to cry. I knew I needed to have my wits about me to make the best decision for Cassie. Dr. Fox left to do some x-rays and I knew then that I was not going home with my cat. I had already decided that I would not consent to any invasive measures to prolong her life. You see, in one of life’s cruel ironies, my mother died 21 years ago from an oral cancer. She was in unfathomable pain, lost 50 pounds and at the end, could not even swallow water. Oh, and don’t forget the rounds of chemo and radiation that ravaged her body.

Dr. Fox came back to us with the “I have really bad news” look on her face. She gently told us that as she had thought, Cassie most likely had osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer not uncommon in older cats. The x-ray was absolute – we could see the mass in her little jaw. Dr. Fox told us that all treatments would be palliative and that none of them were good. She explained that it was a painful and rapidly growing cancer that would eventually start to eat away at the bone. No. No. No. I was grateful and resolute that I could do for Cassie what I could not do for my mother.

I had to sign some consent forms and choose a container for Cassie’s ashes. Dr. Fox explained what would happen when they brought Cassie back to us and then she said she was so sorry to have met us under these circumstances. Gulp. That’s when we shared a hug. Why can’t our doctors be as compassionate as every veterinarian I’ve ever met? Another tech tenderly carried Cassie in on a blanket and asked if I wanted her in my lap. That made smile – I wasn’t going to make Cassie sit in my lap at the end of her life. So, I put my head next to her on the cold metal table and whispered softly into her ear and held her head while Dr. Fox gave her two injections. And just like that, Cassie was gone. It was all very peaceful and she looked like she was enjoying one of her many extended naps. They told us to take our time with her and to simply open the door leading to the back when we were ready to leave. My wife petted her a little and with a cracking voice said, “She’s so soft.” I kissed her on the head one last time and we left with the empty carrier.

It was a grey and chilly evening when we walked into our dark condo with no kitty in the window. And we cried our eyes out. And then we cried some more and shared a bottle of wine and a bag of popcorn and we had a little wake of sorts for our loved one. We told lots of Cassie stories and looked at pictures on our phones. I called my sister and we texted with some close friends.

The first morning without her was the worst. The silence was deafening – Cassie usually sang the song of her people when she heard us stirring in the bedroom. I’ve had plenty of second thoughts about my decision, but I know that bringing her home for a few more weeks would have been selfish. It is a thin line between guilt and grief, but in the end, we can only hope we do right by our faithful companions.

She’s been gone three weeks now and I still keep thinking I hear her patrolling the perimeter at night. It comforts me to think it is her – just making sure we’re okay. I guess some people would say that I rescued Cassie, but we all know that it was the other way around.