Please send loving thoughts for a safe passage to Baast [View all]

Yesterday was one of the worst days of my life.

I had to euthanize my beautiful, beloved house panther, Bellatrix. I can't stop ugly crying and I had to call out sick from work today because I just can't cope with this.

She had just turned eighteen years old (88 in human years). Old enough to vote, and I wish she could have, because she was smarter and kinder than many who do. I don't know how to post photos yet. She was a gorgeous dark black that looked almost like a chocolatey red in the sunlight, with black toe beans and huge, luminous eyes that could switch between green and hazel. Her long black whiskers had turned white over the years and she had the sweetest meow I've ever heard.

She loved laying in the sun on her window ledge or sitting on my lap every evening, whether I was reading, writing postcards to voters or just watching TV. At night, it would never do to just sleep next to me or my adult daughter (who had just turned 16 when Bella came to us and is about to turn 34); she had to climb onto your body and sleep on TOP of you.

Sadly, on her birthday just six weeks ago, her heart and kidneys started showing signs that her thyroid had finally caught up. I am beyond grateful that we managed to keep her going for four years after the hyperthyroid diagnosis. She was so social and attached to us, I couldn't have put her through the radiation treatment because the isolation afterwards would have broken her heart. I realized this morning what a gift it was that I've been able to work from home for the last six years of her life.

After ten rescue cats, I hate to ever say I had a favorite, but she was it. She was the last of my four (now three) cats who remembers my late husband (and oh, HOW she adored him). An animal communicator told my daughter that my dad (whose death in late 2005 was the first of many, many holes that have since been blown in my family's life by loss after loss after loss) sent Bellatrix to us to watch over us. She did him proud and lived up to her role as the family sentinel and protector.

Rest in power, my beautiful little lady. Born January 23, 2008, end of watch March 8, 2026. I love you forever.