How do we do this?

I understand why people ask. If we can answer, maybe we can be ready next time. We can wrap that answer in a handkerchief and carry it in our pockets. The next time sadness is taller than we are, we can grasp that answer like a key, or an EpiPen, or at least a smooth stone.

But then Dewie dies, and all our pockets are empty.

Dewie would not want us to slump around getting pensive about grief. He was a cat of action, kinetic energy in neon orange. He did not sit on a tuffet strumming pretty thoughts about love.

He went to cancer support groups and filled survivors’ laps. He did stand-up comedy, clowning and careening on his long, giggly legs. He stared, moonstruck, into eyes sick of tears.

He received secrets and kept them safe, folded up in his crinkled ear.

We met Dewie well into his senior years, but his reputation preceded him. Though he seemed as carefree as a holiday, he had a long list of accomplishments.

Dewie had outlasted feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), feline leukemia virus (FeLV), and diabetes longer than some endure a toothache. He was an essential member of a Hospice team for a man approaching day’s end. Few cats come to Tabby’s Place with such a resume in their carrier.

But Dewie was never one to rest on his laurels. There were expectations to explode and pounds to throw around. If anyone thought the elder statescat of our “double positive” suite was frail, well, they “had another think coming,” as sweet, corny Trifecta might put it.

Meanwhile, Dewie did not worry about what anyone was thinking.

Let them assume “double positives” are delicate. Let them believe old cats are “done.” Dewie let his deeds speak for themselves.

And when you do the things Dewie did, people start talking. Have you met the new, old cat in Suite F? He is on some kind of mission.

OK, so the mission involved snacks, sunbeams, and sovereignty. If Abacus, Luke, or even Dewie’s darling Trifecta interfered with his plans, Dewie reminded them his resume also included world domination, training in kung-fu, and the writing credits for LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.”

But defensive maneuvers passed as quickly as a summer storm, and Dewie forgave as quickly as he did everything else.

Besides, the real mission was mercy. All of Dewie’s doings, from the slapstick to the smitten, had one thing in common. Without one word, he announced that nothing sad told the full story.

Cancer could not claim the full story, because it brought people and Dewie into each other’s arms, until you could not tell where one survivor’s belly started laughing and the other’s started purring.

A pair of retroviruses could not doom the dawn, because FIV plus FeLV added Dewie to Trifecta’s solarium, where they became the sunshine boys.

Not even mortality could catch life by the tail, because a cat as wry as a cheese curl knew the last laugh.

Dewie left at the same speed with which he lived. There would be no long goodbye, no time for speeches and suffering.

Without warning, the doer of great deeds grew lethargic and withdrawn. Blood work confirmed end-stage leukemia. True to form, Dewie left us no confusion about the right thing to do.

He crossed the expanse, going from greatness to greatness. Abacus was waiting. Dewie’s Hospice friend stood on tiptoe to see him coming. They did not need words to tell Dewie, “well done.”

Dewie will go on to quests we can’t imagine. Everything sad will be mended in the story that never ends.

But we are still here in the age of endings, with nothing but wet tissues in our hands.

We don’t know how we do this. Goodbyes seem to conspire against us. We are clobbered.

Still, we decline the reasonable offer of a defense against “next time.”

It would be practical to guard our hearts, digging moats and placing cannons. At the very least, we could armor the places we are wounded, those little fault lines where a creamsicle cat left us defenseless.

We could choose not to get so close next time.

Admire them through the looking-glass, but do not touch. Remain upright, so you stay taller than sadness. Exempt yourself from the heaviness.

The only cost is not to know the weight of love in your lap.

We can’t live with that answer.

How do we do this? We don’t have the strength. But love does what we cannot, and love is never done.

My friend Dewie told me that story, and I believe him.

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