Last November, my cat Madeleine had a heart attack and died, but she was revived by the emergency hospital vet. It was, to say the least, a traumatic experience for me, no doubt for her too. I couldn’t get over it. I wondered if she had had an out-of-body, or as my husband and I joked, an out-of-kitty experience. So I did what a writer does. I wrote about it.

Maddie had had a urinary tract infection for awhile that we thought we were treating but the antibiotics didn’t work. One Friday, she vomited her dinner and gave up eating. So I took her to the emergency vet where after a routine examination, she went into cardiac arrest. Luckily, the doctors revived her. Afterward, the experience stayed in my mind for weeks. How could I have let this happen?

The artistic outcome was I started writing a story about it and couldn’t stop. It’s now a novel. It’s about a young gardener who’s just finished graduate school and comes home to care for her family home while her mom’s away in rehab. The working title is Sophie and the Tree Hollow. And here are the first few paragraphs. If you like it and want to read more, let me know. I may self-publish it, I may shop for representation, I’m not sure yet. The good news is Maddie’s infection-free and as healthy as a thirteen-year-old cat can be.