Song for Negra

Negra at her regular perch at my cocktail hour, July, 2010 

It is four weeks today since we had to say goodbye to our little Negra, the sleek effervescent black cat that was my constant joy and companion while home here on the farm. She came to us as a little kitten a few months before we moved out to the hills some fourteen years ago, a move that inspired me to write High Up in the Rolling Hills.

As I was mourning her loss, my friend David sent me a link to a video of Emmylou Harris singing Not Enough. The lyrics are an exquisite expression of loss of a loved one and I hope I will be forgiven for quoting them here:

Oh my darling, I miss you so.

How I loved you, you'll never know.
Though it's time for me to let you go.
Oh my darling, I'll miss you so.

Can't believe you're really gone for good.
I still hold on to places you once stood.
I should move on, but I never could,
Really believe you're gone for good.

Oh my friend, what could I do?
I just came home to bury you.
The road is long, the road is rough.
You’re in my heart, that's not close enough.

All those years, disappear
All my tears, are not enough, not enough.
How can it be the ties that bind,
Cut down deep and are so unkind?
When we lose them we will never find,
Anything stronger than the ties that bind.

I still have your memory.
One or two pictures of you and me.
Life is long and life is tough,
But when you love someone,
Life is not long enough.

For me, this has become my Song for Negra.

Emmylou Harris sings her song so tenderly here: