"I know nothing stays the same,
But if you’re willing to play the game,
It’s coming around again."
—"Coming Around Again" by Carly Simon

Death touched my household recently, and I wish he had kept his cold, clammy hands to himself. A couple of weekends ago, I came home from a night out with friends to a shocking discovery. When I walked into my apartment, I saw my furry feline best friend of six years, Stubbs, lying on his back in the living room floor. I assumed he was enjoying yet another lazy "cat nap." I laughed at his idle slumber, walked over, stooped down, and rubbed his tummy like I’ve done a thousand times before. He didn’t react, so I figured he must have been truly exhausted from his not-so-busy day. I rubbed his tummy harder, and he still didn’t move. When I saw that he had gone to the bathroom on the living room floor, which he had never done before, I shook him hard and noticed that his body was limp and a little cool. That’s when the screaming and crying started. If you’re an animal lover, you understand that our pets are family members and we love them so very much.

My parents, along with my good friends Tracey and Mikey, received desperate phone calls immediately. Before I had left my apartment around 10:00 that night, Stubbs had been his normal, jovial self—batting his "sister" Lilith on the head, pawing at a big bug on the balcony screen door as I held him in my arms. Less than three hours later, his kitty-cat soul had departed this world for a place where he can enjoy an endless supply of tuna fish and saunter across miles of kitchen counters without being scolded. Stubbs suffered from numerous health problems including a deviated septum, asthma, a heart murmur, and a rare cat kidney disease. Still, he had shown no signs of sickness and his death could not have come as more of a shock to me. The next morning, Mikey and I took his body to my parents’ home, and he was laid to rest in the backyard with seven other family pets—each grave with its own solemn marker. This past weekend, I visited Mom for Mother’s Day and laid a fresh bunch of pink peonies on his grave. (My family and I are real animal people.)

When death brushes his fingers across your cheek, it starts your mind wandering. Normally, we don’t think much about death, despite the fact that it is the only truly inevitable part of our life. Our brains must be wired not to worry too much about dying. If not, we’d think about nothing else—and in that case, we’d never get the laundry done or the dishes washed. There’s no doubt about it, death sucks, although I know it can be viewed as a relief and a welcome end to suffering in some cases. When you’re flat on your back 24 hours a day in a nursing home, moaning from the pain of your bed sores and dementia won’t even allow you to recognize your own son or daughter, how can death be viewed as anything but welcome? My great-grandmother languished in such a state for years. It was terrible and a cruel ending to a good life. Then sometimes, death sneaks up on us on his padded feet and swings the sickle much too soon and much too furiously. "Death be not proud," John Donne declares in his famous sonnet, but I contend that death is really a sneaky, dirty bastard.

Stubbs’ death is the third one to seriously affect my life. In college, my best friend from high school lost her father unexpectedly. He was a generous man with an incredible sense of humor, and like a second father to me. He had been feeling lethargic for some time, and a visit to the doctor revealed that his body was riddled with cancer. He was gone in just a few weeks. I don’t think he even reached his fortieth birthday. A few years later, my grandmother passed away. I mourned her death only out of selfishness, not for her sake. Mom Mom’s positive outlook and concern for others, even when she suffered from emphysema and severe arthritis, endeared her to me. She also taught me how to tell a story, and I cherish every story she laid upon my ears and heart. She said she had enjoyed her life very much, that she had done just about everything she wanted to do, and she never suffered from dementia like her mother did, thankfully avoiding one of her greatest fears. At one point, I believed she had dipped into dementia when she declared that a horse had visited her nursing home room that day. After a hurried phone call to my mother, who laughed hysterically at my panic, I learned that a Clydesdale horse had indeed visited the nursing home residents that afternoon.

GLBT people often have much more to consider about death than heterosexuals. We may not be able to visit our lifelong partners in the hospital. We may face huge hurdles regarding insurance, funeral planning, and the will. We may not be "out" to everyone who will be attending the funeral, or maybe bitchy Aunt Sally never did approve of her nephew’s "roommate" and she has it in her head to cause a big scene at the solemn ceremony. But death is the ultimate equalizer. I will die one day, probably not filthy rich from a wildly successful career in male modeling, but Donald Trump and Brad Pitt will die, too. After a death, people often put aside the past and their silly prejudices, realizing that we are all travelers on the same road. We can learn to do that now. We can remember to savor each moment and cherish every life. We can learn a lot from Stubbs, who always stopped to smell the cat nip and shower his friends with love.