She did not write with fine point pens.

She did not dress in age-appropriate beige.

She will not let the colors fade.

I plunk out those words because I am that convinced of Lynette‘s powers. But the truth is, today we are feeling drained of all our orange and gold at Tabby’s Place. The magenta and periwinkle have caught the last train to the cloud kingdom. Chartreuse and cerulean have vanished across the veil.

The Queen of the Lounge now reigns beyond our sight, and we are pale as grief.

Lynette crashed polite parties with the boldness of one who knows that she’s received a bonus. At seventeen, marooned outdoors with raging diabetes, she was on borrowed time.

She came to Tabby’s Place, where age is nothing more than a gentle suggestion.

But she would not have a decade. She would not have a front-row seat at Highly Adoptable Fashion Week. She would have insulin injections, and a shameless shave-down to remove time’s knots, and bones that protruded like untold stories.

A more sensible cat would have donned a widow’s black to mourn her youth. A more sensible cat would have written sympathy notes to herself in tiny script.

The Queen of the Lounge donned her rainbow crown, emptied her crayon box, and invited everyone to gallivant.

That sounds like an old-timey word, but youth was Lynette’s lifelong companion. Whether borrowing your lunch or hypnotizing you with her soul stare, she was always frolicking. Sitting perfectly still at the center of the Lounge table, Lynette was double-dutch and hopscotch. All her particles did The Wave.

All her projects were successful.

She got the grumpiest curmudgeons giggling, doodling, head-bonking her Fraggle fringe. You simply could not call life “grey” in the company of the Colorful One.

She got the most distracted doers stopping, sitting, submitting to the party that is presence. You simply could not keep your nose to the grindstone when given the chance to smooth off your rough edges with the Soft One.

She got the elderly back where they belonged, in the sunbeam beyond time. As the captain of our Aged to Purrfection Program, Lynette visited nursing homes, nurturing in full color. As the old loving the old, Lynette rewrote the meaning of youth.

She wrote her name across our souls in bold, strawberry-scented markers.

She taught us to spin the color wheel like the lottery, guaranteed to win every time.

She let us dress her in pineapples and sunflowers, and she clothed us in comfort.

She got us all gallivanting through our garden-variety lives.

She was on borrowed time, we knew that. But love overwrites knowledge, and strawberry-scented markers tell the truest stories. We needed Lynette, forever. That was that.

She didn’t tell us the end of the story, the cancer that would come on like sunset and steal the sky. She didn’t stop gazing into our souls even as we said goodbye.

Even today, she will not let the colors fade. Especially today, we’re counting on her colors to come through the clouds.

There are so many clouds.

After losing his wife, C.S. Lewis wrote, “I never knew how much grief could feel like fear.” We feel this every time we mourn, but some losses howl with particular terror. Lynette’s boldness made us feel safe. Lynette’s colors made us feel confident.

Lynette’s look — those smiling eyes that always seemed to say, “oh, darling, isn’t life a song?” — made us feel at home, right here in the kaleidoscope.

Lynette’s love will not let us stay afraid, ashen in the shadowlands.

Lynette’s oranges and pineapples, her powers and her promises, are ours to keep.

I tremble over how much I miss this cat. I avoid the lounge. I put away my crayons and slam the door.

I catch my face in the mirror and see the eyes Lynette saw. She did not gaze at me for nothing. She did not leave me unchanged.

She left, but she did not leave us alone.

Lynette, beloved, we will not let your memory fade. Be with us as we brave the greys and beiges. Be our Queen when the kaleidoscope spins so very fast. Be our youth when the years are many.

Gallivant with us from across the clouds.

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