If you’d been heading to work on Rt. 250 in Charlottesville the morning of 8/14/2008, you might have looked up at the car wash sign that commemorates wedding anniversaries and birth days and seen this message. For 7 years, my dear friend Scott has insisted that my birthday is not solely my own but my cat Clarabelle’s as well. Arranging the wording with the car wash owner, he tried to include “best friends.” “I can’t do that,” the old man explained. “Everyone would want it then.”
This year my birthday will be mine alone to celebrate. I will miss that tabby more than I can express, but it eases my grief when I think of how she’s free from suffering now. Star-gazer that I am, I feel the appropriateness of her making her exit on the day the waning moon occulted Venus. The bravest creature I’ve ever met, she taught me that to love means taking risks. I didn’t want another cat when she adopted me — let alone the four kittens she delivered soon after– but it was the smartest decision I made in 2001.
I have so many stories, so many images, that I could bore anyone who didn’t already know what a fabulous companion Clarabelle was. Still, I can’t resist posting one last image of her standing guard duty in her favorite spot — her Earlysville backyard. I hope her wise spirit is ranging there once more. Good bye, dear friend.