Vespa Tiny, April 4, 2005 - October 6, 2006

Vespa, aka Tiny, was one of the motorcycle gang. He was small, sweet, and willing occasionally to be picked up. Like Chata and Thumper and Rossie, he was a recent resident at my place. Up until a week or so ago, he went back and forth to my neighbors, although I think he mostly slept here in the kitty casita. He came into the studio for some weeks and slipped under the chair cover. When it was clear he wanted to stay in overnight, I expressed concern about his knowing to use the litter. In the next day or two, he came in one afternoon and went straight to the litter box, as if to demonstrate his understanding of using a litter box.

In the last few weeks, I had a guest sleeping in the studio, so Vespa went back to the casita. Each morning he came out to sun himself, looking more and more frail. Yesterday, I set up the warmer with a new bed there, and he immediately got in it. I also had two bowls of water with flower essences: the blue with Transitions and the orange with Return to Joy. Even if he wasn’t drinking, I wanted the water with essences there as an offering.

I was surprised when he took a turn toward illness. I was confident he was going to be with us for years. These cats constantly surprise my expectations. I suspect he had FIP, like Louie-Louie did.

“Are they all going to get sick and die?” my neighbor asked me today when she came to visit Vespa’s body. She especially adored him and Sparkles, so this is a fast grief to lose both in less than two weeks.

When I review who has died of illness, I see that the number isn’t so many, probably not more than the average. Louie-Louie, Little Little Spot, Sparkles, and Vespa. Some disappeared, several we know were killed by cars, and one may have been ill.

I have had the great privilege to be with all of these beings as they passed. Bonsai, too.

Vespa’s passing today was very quiet. He had some moments of reaching and yowling, but they were brief and infrequent. The blue angel’s presence felt very soothing to me and hopefully to him too. I don’t know with certainty that the others who have passed come to help, but it seemed so to me. His last breaths were small shudders, and then gone.

This morning I checked in the casita but he wasn’t there. I thought he might have gone under the pallets that serve as a floor. I shone a flashlight but didn’t see him. I decided to wait before tearing up the floor. My neighbors hadn’t seen him either. When I did my meditation on him earlier, the energy seemed big, smooth, and warm, so I wondered if he had already passed over. I put on music especially for him.

Later, while working in my studio, I glanced up to see him staggering toward the water bowl outside. He looked like he had just come out of one of the little condos. I opened the door and he staggered in and tried to crawl up under the sheet on the chair. I lifted him and then went to get plastic and prepare the warmer for him in case he preferred that. He wanted to stay under the sheet. Later, after he passed dark urine, I found him on floor. I replaced plastic and fresh bedding and put him under the sheet again with just head and paws out. His time was near.

So I sat, sang, talked with him. There was nothing I would rather do.

Yesterday I opened Stephen Mitchell’s version of the Tao Te Ching to Chapter 23.

“If you open yourself to the Tao,
you are at one with the Tao
and you can embody it completely.
...If you open yourself to loss,
you are at one with loss
and you can accept it completely.”

I think these are equivalent. In the search for joy we must pass through loss. I suspect ultimately this is the gift these cats are offering me. Joy. Presence and joy.

Stephen Mitchell’s only comment on Chapter 23 is “Trust the intelligence of the body.” Cats know this.

Vespa seemed sad the last few weeks. I wonder if he regretted leaving so soon. In the last week, he seemed to have accepted his dying and was more at peace. Of the cats who have died, he strikes me as the one most likely to try embodiment again soon. He said through Sharon that he wanted to be big and brawny. Now, he is immensely big. He is his true natural strength.

I asked Sharon if he was okay about my blogging about him. “If it helps cats,” he replied. I don’t know if this helps cats, but I do know cats help me, and that seems sufficient reason to publicly honor this gorgeous and delightful being who so generously graced my patio and studio for spring and summer.

Another beautiful spirit set free to light the sky with his rainbow body. Blessed be.