the (nearly) last picture ...

for the last picture itself, taken twenty seconds later, was too blurred, and yet also too suggestive of decrepitude, for decency's sake.  How does one commemorate the last hour or so of one's dear cat's life?  With Emmett, I took a few pictures of him curled up, sleeping, on a cushion - but nothing later, tempting though it was to show him jumping, one last, frail time, onto the dashboard as we drove to the vet's.  With Sappho, I took a picture in the vet's itself, which, as she looks out in a numbed haze, always serves as a reminder that yes, her time had indeed come.  With Lola - we know she was sick, almost certainly had cancer (she lost two pounds in five weeks, an ultrasound showed a huge mass on one kidney) - but each time she had hydration, she perked up a little bit again.  Indeed, yesterday, perked up a lot.  But today - she could hardly manage a drop of pee, despite trying and trying - and what there was, was bloodstained.  And she was very weak.  So ... one last outing to the yard, one more drink from the birdbath ... We knew that her time was up, and our vet didn't try and persuade us otherwise.  Indeed, everyone at Eldorado Animal Hospital was very sweet indeed, and - unlike anywhere else I've known - they even had a separate, quiet, comfortable - what should one call it? Bereavement room, with a separate exit - quite unlike the awful experience back in Princeton with Saffy, which managed to exemplify callous tactlessness all the way through.  The big cage of pretty little finches would have been torture to a happier cat - but when Lola didn't pay any attention whatsoever to them - well, that was confirmation.  Poor, dear girl.  The end - after the loss of Emmett back in April - of a generation.