I was clearing out a drawer on the weekend and I found Alfie’s tag. Alfie was my daughter’s cat, but he had come to live with us because her apartment at the time was too small (she was in university). He was a very social and playful cat, and gave our own lively cat, Cheechoo a run for her money. Alfie was alway more daring than Cheechoo and wandered pretty far afield when he was outside. The kids and I long ago agreed that we would rather let our cats go outside and have a life, even if it meant there was a chance of something happening.

Cheechoo on the left. Alfie on the right.

At the start of the summer, a neighbour came to the door and asked if we had a black cat. “Do you have bad news?” I asked her? She just nodded. I walked over to her house with my older son (17). In their garage there was a cardboard box. The neighbour’s husband opened the box and just from the colour of the fur, I knew it was Alfie.

There was no sign of damage. He’d been hit by a car and the neighbour had picked him up, not know for sure whose cat it was. I carried the box home. He was still warm and from the weight, you could just tell it was Alfie. We put the box on the back porch and I went to pick up my younger son (12), who was at a friend’s house.

As soon as we were alone in the car, I told my younger son that I had sad news and explained what had happened. Back home we considered our options and decided that we wanted to bury Alfie in our own backyard. He looked like he was asleep. I decided to make dinner first. Among other things, I wanted to be absolutely certain he was dead. The boys were solemn, but not distraught. My older son had shed some tears, which is not a common occurrence. “This isn’t fun,” I thought, “but this is part of life. I don’t want to hide this from my children.”

After dinner we wrapped Alfie in a nice cloth and prepared a place for him beneath an apple tree in the backyard. We placed him gently into the ground and had a moment of silence before covering him over. It was important to my sons that we make sure the grave could not be disturbed by other animals, so we placed a paving stone over the place. The space looked quite beautiful, actually, and I can see it from the kitchen window.

Alfie's tag.

We still miss Alfie. But he had a good life and, like all lives, it had to end one day. Experiencing that is a part of growing up.