My cat Giovanni died in my arms, one morning last fall, just as the sun was just rising and the first rays coming in through the window on us. He had been suffering kidney and heart failure and lost most his weight in just two weeks. He gasped three times then died an old kitty, almost 19 years old.

As an artist, it helped me to paint it out and work on a little cat alter. You paint out the love and the memories that you never want to forget. 

He was my only baby, my companion, and my little follower for as long as I can remember, and its hard to live without him! He had the hugest green eyes and always liked to cuddle and to purr.  I’ve made a whole shelf of memories and photos of him, and keep them near his little cedar box with his ashes, and  I linger there a lot. I really miss him.  Here is the painting I have been working on since he died:

I inscribed my art with three mysterious sayings, that came to me this year from my dreams.

Moving across the waters~

the shape of my soul ~

four chambers ~

The four chambers is in reference to the dream I had while my cat was dying in my arms and refers to underground caves. It also means the four caverns of the heart.  When he was dying, I had a vivid dream where my cat and I  found and went into my childhood home, and I felt great happiness and peace there. In the dream we found four rooms under the house, each one a little darker and more like a cave. These rooms, I had never known of, and we explored them, my cat and I. We felt great joy in finding them. I think we were dreaming together of his passing into death, and it was a glimpse of a heaven, where we will one day be together again.