Same day, thirteen years ago,
we brought them home together from the
ASPCA shelter on 92nd, our two marvelous
cats. Shimmer, age 2, pulled his
twenty pound frame and twisted
rear leg from a tiny cage and charmed and
cajoled himself onto my wife’s lap,
the master survivalist.
Sahara,
barely a year, a black and white tuxedo
with a black stocking on each
leg, “coco (chanel) bunny” for short,
did the same, jumped into my lap as I
squatted next to her and into my heart.
When they started showing their age and
Infirmities a year ago, we promised them
and ourselves that we would allow them to
tell us when it was time to go, when to put them on
what the sentimentalists among whom I number call
the rainbow bridge.
They taught us, this past year,
how tenaciously creatures who are loved equally
tenaciously cling to life until their bodies give out
and their spirits evanesce.
Anyone who has been to our home will remember
them, Shimmer who loved people and was adept
at courting and connecting and putting those he
met instantly at ease … we termed him our “therapy
cat” … and Sahara who evoked on her appearance a
chorus of ‘isn’t she so pretty.” Those of you who read The
Almanack might have seen fotos of Shimmer ambling
among the lupines in his fern forest — I always referenced
him in my nature poems — spotting the first robins nest of
Spring in our eaves; beside me as we bade adieu to the last
fledgling leaving our lakeside or to the family of Canadas
preparing to fly south as the lake iced over.
He never expressed anger or upset in his final days,
summoning energy to play patty cake with a blue jay
teasing him outside our rear window.
Nor did our very private Sahara, who in her last year
found her voice and chirped away at us whenever
we drew near, summoning forth from us with her
big dark eyes hugs and caresses, exchanging
with me Eskimo nose kisses, snuggling closely,
on her very last night, with my wife, love and
reassurance.
They trusted us until their very end.
We searched and found an emergency service
in Lake Placid, where the cats and we were met
with compassion and kindness. Both sniffed around
the little room where we waited and then were each
lifted to a small table and sedated. Once both were
fully calm and barely conscious,
the fatal injections were administered,
first to Sahara, then Shimmer.
When his heart stopped, after giving off two large
final beats, the vet pronounced him gone, telling
Shimmer “Now go and play with your sister.”
Which broke our hearts and provokes me to tears
as I write these lines.
We had a private home commemoration – their
ashes and fotos surrounded by candles and flowers
and the recitation of two poems from my wife that captured
their very essences and the poem you will just have read.
Come Spring their ashes in engraved wooden boxes will be
buried side-by-side in our garden filled with bee’s balm,
Echinacea and holly hocks directly in front of a large stone
placed there this past Spring for this very purpose.
We will see this remembrance of them every day and
their spirits will be with us.
This poem has been written to commemorate our two beloved cats, Shimmer, 15, who has been mentioned in several of my Almanack-published poems, and Sahara, 14, who passed together across the proverbial Rainbow Bridge on December 30, 2023. They lived in our home for thirteen years.
“Now Go and Play With Your Sister”
Photos provided by Jack Carney.
Very beautifully expressed, and I’d say more but I seem to have something in my eye …
My sincerest condolences for you and your family’s loss and my deepest gratitude for the obvious care and empathetic connection your family shared with Sahara and Shimmer throughout their lives!
It takes a special type of empathy to adopt or rescue any animal, but especially those that are much less desirable by our current social culture. I’ve actually had an arrangement with Elmore SPCA over the past few decades to only consider those “unadoptable” and usually geriatric felines partly because I didn’t want any of them to outlive me!
I’ve been through the adoption of a cat whose severe separation anxiety after 10+ years with their original caretaker was quite literally fatal after they were placed into a nursing home that didn’t allow pets. Simba was completely inconsolable and within a few months was also gone.
I’ve also never separated any bonded felines which has left me in my current situation with 3 (Was almost 4!) Torbies who were originally just being fostered! But then shelters were all closed the day before their return date due to COVID-19 and days turned into weeks, months, years; adopted!!
I now have 5 all over or near 15 years old and I think these will be the final troop at this stage of my life.
Again, my sympathy and gratitude for sharing and caring for these sentient comrades in life!
My sincerest thanks for your kind words of consolation and camaraderie. We’ll be rescuing again, I’m sure, but continue too caught up in our profound sorrow.
Again, your understanding is touchingvand very much appreciated. Best wishes to you and your feline family.
Jack Carney