Snowball

In the softest light of the early evening, as waves spilled the last of their silver against the shore, I found Snowball, my neighbor Kevin’s black cat, on the concrete of my boat ramp down at the lakefront.

“Oh, hell…”

She was dead, stretched into a final pose among pinecones and thin strands of aquatic weed that had washed ashore and threaded themselves together.

Snowball made a good run for an outdoor cat. Something near 21 years. Though a couple of years ago, she lost half of her tail. Kevin told me she’d been missing for a couple of days. And she’d refused both breakfast and loving the last time he saw her.

Cats do that at the end of their days.

I walked up to Kevin’s place to tell him. “I guess you’ll want to do something with her,” I tendered.

A few minutes later, we were standing over Snowball. Her eyes were open, but dull and locked in a thousand-mile stare.

“I’m glad we found her,” I said. “It’s better to know. She was a good girl.”

“She was my friend,” Kevin responded. “One of my best friends.”

Kevin gathered up the cat and slipped her into a heavy plastic bag that once held salt for a water-softening system. And while it may not seem plausible, this was done with grace.

“I’m sorry, Kevin.”

Kevin acknowledged me wordlessly.

Some things don’t long for words.

Snowball

—Mitchell Hegman