"No Nine Lives for This Cat"

Praise for Cat Shackleton (9/5/94):

When I look down from where I write this, I see my sleeping daughter, snoring lightly, happy and healthy exactly eight months to the day when you delivered her, wriggling and gooey, into the arms of her disbelieving mother.

And in my mind's eye, I can see you now, too, Cat--in the hours before the birth occurred--smiling, earnest, comforting, evincing just the right amount of concern. Up past your elbows, you have rolled the sleeves of your grey Patagonia jacket. You look relaxed, as if just returned from a brief tour on cross-country skis, and you know precisely what to say to ease the anxiety of two first-time parents in the throes of labor. Later, you coach me as I coach my wife through her contractions, prompting me to tell her when I see the head deep in the birth canal, to continue my encouragement, and to be excited rather than bug-eyed and awestruck.

Drifting further back through time, I see you giving us our first opportunity to hear the staccato heartbeat of our baby. I hear you laying out the plan for the months to come in our pregnancy, and I hear your hearty laugh as we make dumb jokes to ease our minds and mask our remarkable ignorance. I also see you running your capable hands across my wife's naked belly as if it were a crystal ball and you were divining a future for us--one you surely brought to life.

This, I imagine, is how many of your friends and patients remember you. What a tragedy that one who brought life into this world so gently for so many could have her own life taken from her so harshly and so all alone.

Now, when I think of all you have done, it seems that I never thanked you properly. Perhaps, somehow, you can rest easier knowing that you will always be remembered--and silently blessed--by the hundreds of us parents who look at our children and understand the difference that you made.

Thank you.