We said goodbye to Lucy Tuesday afternoon. She was a musicians’ cat, the cat of my heart, a talkative extrovert who loved the vocalists, flutists, clarinetists, cellists and violinists (including the beginners) who came over to rehearse. She loved Satie, Hindemith, Liszt, Brahms and Debussy, though she could take or leave Bach and Beethoven.

Lucy was adopted more than 15 years ago from the Roanoke Valley SPCA when I just went to look, a lone little black kitten who purred in my arms for a while. I had to leave the next day for a week on a magazine project, and called the SPCA every afternoon to see if she had been adopted (they couldn’t reserve a cat, though I wonder if they did, unofficially, that once); on Friday she was still there, so I canceled my last interview, drove three and half hours home, arrived as they were closing up and adopted her without a litter box to my name. We walked in the house and she immediately knew she was home.

She’s been through a lot with me, including marriage (she adopted Phil pretty much immediately), teaching (she always made grading difficult), the appearance of a niece and nephew (whom she loved even when they were noisy, unpredictable toddlers), two pacemaker changes, three pianos, eight (?) job changes, a million concerts, a master’s degree and two years living in Memphis including one tornado warning, one break-in, occasional invasions of insects almost as large as she was and one baffling salamander that moved much faster than she expected it to.

She chased her tail to make us laugh and would “catch” her favorite stuffed owl, announce that with a particular meow and then present him to us so that we could praise her hunting skills. She hadn’t caught that little owl for a month or two but early last week, Phil came home one day and found him in the center of her blanket. I think she was just letting us know she still had it in her.

In the end she wanted to be with us as many minutes of the day as she could even while she dealt with what we believe was cancer (she was too fragile for a biopsy, so we treated her as medically gently as possible in hopes that she would get stronger again). Monday evening she was eating, talking to us enthusiastically and carefully climbing stairs, and slept for hours in my arms; the next day she was quiet and barely moved. That last early afternoon before we went to the vet, I held her and we listened to the birds in the backyard and enjoyed the spring warmth. Her head was resting in my hand when she left.

I miss her. She leaves behind her sweet fellow cat Lillie, who is sitting with and on us while we grieve. Thank you to the musicians and friends who’ve been so good to her over the years. Thank you to Veterinarians to Cats and Emergency Veterinary Service of Roanoke for their compassionate care.