Ellipses, a.k.a. Lipsey, left us today. She was the last of the original “generation” of cats that first came to live with us starting in 2007. Before then were we just dog owners, with a string of Labs going back to 1979 with Rhett, Judy’s first yellow Lab. It was Ellipse and Lulu who came to first stay with us when my oldest daughter came back as well from FSU in Tallahassee, followed by Lucy walking in the front door during a very hot summer day in 2008. Ellipses was adopted out of a no-kill shelter in Tallahassee. We suspect that she was first owned by a math grad student (hence the name), and was left in Tallahassee when the grad student had to leave. She was definitely an indoor lap cat and used to living a quiet pampered life.

She was technically a calico-marked long-haired Norwegian forest cat. But should would never have survived the land of her ancestors. She was too much a human companion, quite bright, and at times quite vocal. He bright and intelligent eyes were everywhere. She never missed anything. And when she felt like it (and she did a lot of times) she was everywhere in the house checking out every little nook and cranny. But her primary location in the house was in the kitchen.

I don’t know why she choose the kitchen, and specifically the kitchen table. But if she wasn’t out roaming she was there, resting, watching. Sometimes she’d leap up on the folded towels I’d leave next to her on the edge of the table. But if she was anything, she wasn’t a pest. She never went after any of the food we had out in the kitchen. She just watched and on occasion would lift up her nose and sniff.

She is survived by Ruby the yellow Lab and Annie the Doodle, and the two Gingersnaps, Bo and Luke. It’s a good thing we have them all. We’re down now to the number of animals we had back in late 2007. My wife and I have already asked one another if we’re going to get a replacement for Ellipse, but I think we’re going to put that decision off for a little while.

My last hours with Ellipse were last night, when I slept out in my lounger in the TV room. I wanted to make sure I was near in case Ellipse might need me. I fed her her last meal, and she bumped my hand for some rubs, which I gladly gave. In hind sight it was almost like a simple silent goodbye.

This last photo is where she was resting the night before, and many nights before that. It’s full of her hair, but I don’t care. I don’t know what I’ll do with it; probably clean it and wash it and put it back out in a corner for one of the boys to snooze in. But it’s empty of her outsized presence, like the house at the moment. A reminder that time marches on and all thing, cats and humans included, reach their end.