In Loving Memory of Nina
"The beautiful cat endures and endures."
-Grave Inscription at Thebes
They say memories are golden
A million times I needed you,
In life I loved you dearly,
If tears could build a stairway
Our family chain is broken,
Author unknown
well maybe that is true.
I never wanted memories,
I only wanted you.
a million times I cried.
If love alone could have saved you
you never would have died.
In death I love you still.
In my heart you hold a place
no one could ever fill.
and heartache make a lane,
I'd walk the path to heaven
and bring you back again.
and nothing seems the same.
But as God calls us one by one,
the chain will link again.
A Parting Prayer
Dear Lord, please open your gates
and call St. Francis
to come escort this beloved companion
across the Rainbow Bridge.
Assign her to a place of honor,
for she has been a faithful servant
and has always done her best to please me.
Bless the hands that send her to you,
for they are doing so in love and compassion,
freeing her from pain and suffering.
Grant me the strength not to dwell on my loss.
Help me remember the details of her life
with the love she has shown me.
And grant me the courage to honor her
by sharing those memories with others.
Let her remember me as well
and let her know that I will always love her.
And when it's my time to pass over into your paradise,
please allow her to accompany those
who will bring me home.
Thank you, Lord,
for the gift of her companionship
and for the time we've had together.
And thank you, Lord,
for granting me the strength
to give her to you now.
Amen.
-Brandy Duckworth
"We choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan."
-Irving Townsend
"Dear little ghost, whose memory has never faded from my heart... Sleep sweetly in the fields of asphodel, and waken, as of old, to stretch thy languid length, and purr thy softy contentment to the skies."
-Agnes Repplier
Who shall tell the lady's grief
When her cat was past relief?
Who shall number the hot tears
Shed o'er her, belov'd for years?
Who shall say the dark dismay
Which her dying caused that day?
Of a noble race she came
And Grimalkin was her name.
Young and old full many a mouse
Felt the prowness of her house;
Weak and strong full many a rat
Cowered beneath her crushing pat;
And the birds around the place
Shrank from her too-close embrace
But one night, reft of her strength
She lay down and died at length:
Lay a kitten by her side
In whose life the mother died.
Spare her life and lineage,
Guard her kitten's tender age,
And that kitten's name as wide
Shall be known as hers that died
And whoever passes by,
The poor grave where Puss doth lie,
Softly, softly let him tread,
Nor disturb her narrow bed.
-Christina Rossetti
No heaven will not ever be Heaven be
-Epitaph
Unless my cats are there to welcome me.
