Farewell, Simon

Simon offered the gift of a fresh reminder that death is coming for all of us, perhaps sooner than we imagine, but there can be incredible beauty in the passing.

May 23, 2026

In America, and Western culture in general, we tend to only think and talk about death when confronted by it and presented no way to dodge the subject. Death is tragic, sad, and, for many, frightening. It is also the most inevitable thing in the world. We can ignore it, even delay it, but we can’t avoid  it, not through our riches or our beaming health. The Quiet Sister comes for us all.

Not all cultures are so avoidant of death and loss. The Day of the Dead is a Mexican and Latin American tradition that remembers and honors the deceased with elaborate altars and ancestors’ favorite foods. In Eastern cultures and religions, the deceased are much more likely to be remembered in daily life and even considered ever-present guides from beyond the grave. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Bardo Thodol, or Book of the Dead, is a guide that is read and taught for navigating the passage from this life to what lies beyond. Death is much more than just a medical event.

Over the past week, I’ve been confronted with death three times, each time beautiful in its own way.

The first time was a conversation with my friend about how she and her husband, one of my best friends, had opened up their home and cared for her mother and father in their final days. Both had passed away recently, and this friend was still carrying a lot of weight, a lot of grief, from the experience. While she was still burdened and recovering from the difficulty and trauma of it all, I saw clearly the strength and beauty in a daughter and son-in-law who opened up their home and oriented their lives around giving these loved ones as comfortable a passing as possible. We sat out on the deck together drinking coffee, watching the birds flitter on and off her feeder just like her mother and father both enjoyed doing in their last days of life.

My second encounter with death was over dinner with one of my oldest friends, a woman I’ve known for over forty years. When she was in her twenties, she suddenly and tragically lost her older sister, her best friend, to a brain aneurism. I knew the older sister too. She was in the prime of her life, a beautiful and funny bright bundle of energy. My friend put her fork down and stopped eating as she recalled and shared memories of that time. With tears in her eyes, she said, “She’s the one person who I thought would be with me my whole life. I thought we would spend it together. Then she was gone.” It was a deeply touching moment, and I cried along with her.

My third encounter with death was just a couple of days ago. My sister is a passionate lover and protector of all animals, none more than the cats and dogs that she’s welcomed into her home and into her life over the years. Simon, an orange tabby, had a rough go of it for a long time as his heart and circulation slowly failed him. Yet he always maintained a sweet disposition and a crackly meow that made you feel like he was trying to tell you something important. My sister lately had been giving him seven heart pills a day to keep him alive and  comfortable. 

Tuesday night Simon decided that he’d held on long enough and wandered out beyond the fence and into the pasture where he lay down on his side and took his final feline breath under a clear night sky with a storybook moon, closely and magically framed by Jupiter above and Venus below.

After a frantic search for a cat who rarely wandered far, I was the one who spied Simon with my flashlight as I scanned the pasture ground. I went straight to my sister, gave her a big hug, then followed behind as she marched out to where the cat lay, still warm, in the tall grass. Without any hesitation, she bent over, picked him up, and held him tight in her arms. Through her sobbing, I could make out her raw and heartfelt words. “Oh, Simon. Oh, my sweet boy.” 

A mother crying for the loss of her precious pet who had quietly slipped away from the house to die peacefully on his own terms. A glorious moon and sky full of stars illuminating the tragic scene, reminding me that we are all just here for a cosmic moment in time. Death will come soon for all of us. There’s no reason to fight it or fear it.

I would love to take my last breath just like Simon, lying down in the soft grass, staring up at a clear and glorious night sky.