My beloved cat of 7 years, Frodo, had to leave this world on December 18, 2015, only a few days before the Winter Solstice. She was very sick with cancer and had fought bravely for 6 months. She didn’t want to fight anymore, she decided she wanted to rest instead. We helped her leave this world peacefully and painlessly. She will always be missed.
The day before, I took some photos on a winter walk at Point State Park, and reveled in the bare trees dripping with fresh rain. They appeared to be ornamented in nature’s Yuletide bulbs.
It was a brisk day, and the rain had only stopped briefly. I love that I live where we have 4 separate seasons, and I greatly appreciate them all. They all have their beauty. It just seems so poignant to me that my cat should need to pass on in the Winter Time. A time that sees so much closing down, so much inward turning, so much quiet, so much death. Poetry refers to Death as the Winter Time, or the Winter of the Soul. I do not believe humans are the only ones who feel that. All species in their own innate way, just know.
The pace it slows, the heart it knows; the time to pass has come.
Leaving this place, turning of this face; let me go, let me go.
For Frodo.
the sagacious bee 