Two days ago, Saturday morning, I woke from a dream about death. Some short time later, on my way to the bathroom, I looked into the office where I saw the cat as he often is, spread out on his chair by the window, the window serving as his way in and out of the house. But all was not well.

He was wet. (There has been so much rain.) His fur stood up in darkened tufts like the waves of a stormy orange sea. And he was loaded with green burrs, some trailing stems and blades of grass. When I approached, I saw that the thick white wool shawl on which he lies was smeared pink in places with his blood.

My friend (and former lover) Veronica was Wuichol's care-giver for the last eight years. She adopted him when his former care-givers, her friends, Lore and Maya, mother and daughter, moved back to Chile. When Veronica herself moved back to Chile last July, I moved in and assumed the role.

Seeing the dear creature in such distress, wet and lying in the cold morning air. (It has been so chilly.) Despite his loud complaints, I wrapped him up in a bath towel, carried him into the warmer living room, and, after throwing something over the sofa to protect it from his blood, laid him down on it.

There, as delicately as I could I examined and washed his wounds which were three: a patch of skin bitten off his back; a bite on his belly (a puncture wound from one tooth and a hole torn by the the opposite jaw); and most ominously, a slit up the middle of his throat.

I should have brought him for medical attention immediately. Instead, I watched the patient for a few hours. Then, I messaged Veronica in Chile. She, observing that things were serious, asked me to bring Wuichol to the vet, and provided me with the contact of one we had used before, Servicios Veterinarios Integrales, a lovely couple in La Lejona.

Messaging them first, I brought him there. After a preliminary examination, I was asked to come back for him in three hours. By then the tranquilizer needed to examine and care for his wounds would have worn off.

When I returned home, something about the doctor's reaction to the belly wound stuck in my mind. I messaged the office, "The doctor looked concerned when he saw the abdominal wound. If the cat cannot survive I don't want to prolong its suffering." Nine minutes later, they wrote back, "That wound is not serious, but the problem is that his trachea is perforated and that can be a major problem if we are considering his ability to survive. Possibly, the best recommendation would be euthenasia." All of this I conveyed to a very concerned Veronica.

I went back to the veterinary office at the appointed time, just as Wuichol was waking up from the tranquilizer. There the doctor made a much more hopeful prognosis. He counselled that at a veterinary hospital (such as was not available at his clinic), and with an oxygen tube down the his trachea, and being fed intravenously, Wuichol's trachea might, in less than a week, heal without surgical intervention. (Also, he advised, there was something wrong with a joint in his hind leg which would require x-ray diagnosis.)

With Wuichol partially shaved and very much wounded on the table between us, the doctor was asking me to consider, without using these words; How attached we are to our cat. (Veronica is very.) And how many thousands, or tens of thousands of pesos we are willing to pay for his possible recovery.

Trying to decide, when I could not (for a series of reasons) reach Veronica, either on my phone or theirs, the vet's wife readily agreed with me that that failure (I could not decide without Vero's input) was itself a "sign." We would give it a try. I would bring Wuichol to Pet Vet the next morning (they do have a hospital, but were already closed for the day), at least to get another opinion.

Wuichol is a fighter. He occupies his chair by the window, enduring the cold night air (even though the rest of the house is warmer), to guard his territory (the front patio and upper levels of the house) from the intrusion of other cats. He lies out front on the sidewalk, a fixture in the neighborhood, to guard his broader territory: the houses across the street and on either side, and their patios and carports, easily entered through bars or wire fences, as well as the large empty lot next door. Almost blind, he does all this by smell.

I've seen him chase away many, but I've only once seen him fight with another cat. This last July, during the day, in the middle of the street, when he zeroed right in on the "intruder" by scent alone, and ferociously engaged. However, Yasna, (Lore's sister, Maya's aunt, and Veronica's friend of over 40 years), who lives upstairs and sleeps in the front of her apartment (while I sleep in the back of mine), told me that she frequently hears cat fights late at night, helplessly observing, "What can we do? We cannot lock him inside."

The protagonist in what Borges regarded as perhaps his best story, "El Sur," a librarian from Buenos Aires, travels south to the estate he inherited from his grandfather, a frontier soldier. As his train stops early in a small country town, he goes to wait at a general store, where a group of drunken young men taunts him, with one of them throwing balls of bread at him.

An old gaucho in the corner tosses him a naked dagger. The librarian, although certain, having never handled a knife in his life, that he will lose, yet, motivated by some primal force, feels compelled to demand satisfaction. The story ends with the combatants going outside to fight, the protagonist going towards the kind of death that he wants.

I brought Wuichol home from the vet's, Saturday evening, laid him back on the sofa, and began a video call with Veronica, with my camera pointing towards the cat. Within a couple of minutes, as we discussed the situation, he made motions as if about to cough up something. A few very short moments later his face froze: eyes open, mouth agape, into what I recognized as the grimace of death, what I called then "un rostro de muerte." He was gone.

Like the protagonist in Borges' story, but expert in fighting, it was the kind of death that Wuichol would have wanted, that of a warrior... glorious, noble. He who lived tooth and claw, died that way, with a knife in his hand.

As our conversation continued, Veronica added first Lore, then Yasna (who is out of town) to our video call. And we spent an hour and a half saying our goodbyes to a remarkable cat, with me keeping the camera on his beautiful corpse. I'm glad that Vero could see him go, and that we all had that chance to grieve together. They spent much, much more time with him than did I. But it was I who lost an active companion.

Just recently, he became comfortable sitting in my lap, while I tap on this keyboard, receiving my frequent, though less than constant attention. Only a few days ago, with him so ensconced, petted and scratched when I took a break from typing, I reflected how fortunate I was to have this being with whom to express my only regular physical affection.

I teared up during that conversation Saturday night. But I didn't cry until yesterday, Sunday morning, on another phone call with Veronica, sobbing into the phone, "El mundo es un desmadre," The world is a mess.

My neighbor Catalino, where I last lived, gave me the key to his garden, a verdant lot across from my apartment. There, in that green space I would do my yoga. There I buried my cat, Fellini, in a shallow grave, under a pile of rocks. I would have dug deeper but the shovel I had, square with no point to it, was made for scooping sand or coal, not digging.

Some months later, when Catalino died, and I tried to return the key to his son, that son, looking horrified, exclaimed, "No! My father wanted you to have it. He told me 'He is my friend.'" Yesterday, after drying my tears, I went off to bury Wuichol in that garden lot. It was good to have something to do, something physically demanding.

And it was physically demanding because with the same shovel, I had the same problem digging. This time, however, I brought along a pick axe to help. That very heavy tool is meant to be swung mightily over the head, not used at close quarters as I employed it. But still, I got the job done, and fortunately in the shade, as, for the first time in over a week the sun made its first sustained appearance.

Last night was the beginning (and today until sunset is the continuation) of my father's death anniversary, during which I recite the Kaddish, the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead. And I have been, several times so far. But I started saying that prayer early, yesterday afternoon, graveside after burying Wuichol.

On returning home, I gave away Wuichol's bag of food to a neighbor, with her own cat, who frequently stopped to admire him, as many did. I haven't yet removed his food bowls (one for kibble and one for milk) from their place in the kitchen, nor am I in any hurry to move his chair from its place before the office window.

My problems are all, thank God, very small, and mostly of my own making or made worse by me. I have friends who want to spend time with me. But right now, here on Monday morning, I have good reason to feel alone.

More images of Wuichol's burial