I know the name of the woman who took this picture, but will keep it to myself. Two of my friends told me of the woman and her picture of her husband at the time of his death within the same week. Those two friends did not know each other. I knew one at the Starbucks I walked to many mornings with another friend, and I knew the other as the co-leader of a spiritual group in town.

My spiritual leader friend, Lee, had a 4x6 print of the photo that she let me photograph. That’s what you see here, cropped and with the contrast adjusted to emphasize the spiral shape of the hazy light escaping the man’s mouth. The band of light across the picture on the wall I suppose to be from the camera flash.

I asked Lee if she could get permission from the man’s wife to let me share the photo with others, and that was granted to me.

The woman in the mirror in the photograph is a hospice attendant. The man’s wife took the photo of the cat, trying to capture what she thought were tears in the cat’s eyes. By the time she took the picture, the cat was already moving away. Cats are often said to cuddle with dying people shortly before their death, and to leave them upon death like this one. Oscar the Cat, for instance.

Photo adjusted to show the cat’s eyes as best I can manage.