David McElroy

It happened again today. I was at the office trying to work when the panicked voice started screaming inside.

“I’ve got to get out of here — right now!”

There was nothing unsafe around me. Nothing suddenly changed. But the inner voice that knows me and tells me the truth was in full panic mode.

This has been happening off and on for a couple of years, but because the conscious, rational part of me hasn’t yet listened and obeyed, something inside me is yelling louder. It’s more urgent. It’s sounding an alarm more frequently.

A few weeks ago, I sent a friend an email to explain what’s going on inside about this. I told him that something in me was so insistent on major change that I was concerned — well, half concerned, half hopeful — that I was about to just say, “I quit,” and walk away from life as I know it right now.

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I’ve known for months that I was slowly losing Dagny, but that doesn’t make her death any easier.

I had a bad feeling about her when I left for work today. When I went to check on her first thing this morning, she lifted her head and looked at me, but then she settled back into the same box where she had been sleeping with Merlin late last night — with her paw wrapped around her bigger brother. (See the photo below.) She showed no interest in getting up and moving to my bed, which is what we did every other morning.

I got home as soon as I could Wednesday evening and I felt a lump in my throat as I got out of the car, because I feared the worst. Moments later, I found her cold and still — seemingly relaxed in the same position, in the same box, where I left her earlier in the day.

She was a small cat, but she’s left a large hole in this family.

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