The Red Sox won the 2004 World Series on a Wednesday and had their victory parade three days later, on a Saturday – Oct. 30, to be exact. More than 3 million of us lifelong fans made the pilgrimage to Boston to see our team and take part in the world's biggest party. For quite a few of us, it was the only time we would be able to see our baseball heroes, as Fenway Park had been selling out since early 2003 and ticket prices were rising.

I had a great time, made possible because my best friend lived in Manchester, N.H, less than an hour from Boston.

When the Sox won the American League pennant last week, I looked forward to another World Series victory because I wanted to experience the revelry again, and because it's just about impossible to get your hands on Sox tickets unless you happen to know someone.

Unfortunately, I won't be attending this World Series parade. That's because many of the Red Sox players don't want to wait until Saturday; they want to get out of Boston as quickly as possible. So instead of a massive party all of New England can have a chance to attend, the city of Boston is going to hold the parade at noon today.

The timing concerns me because I don't want the Red Sox to become an elitist organization only the wealthy and only Bostonians can enjoy. More than any other team, the Red Sox represent an entire region of the country – New England. People from Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and about half of Connecticut enjoy their Sox. It's probably the one thing we all have in common more than just being New Englanders.

But the Sox may be becoming too popular. Even though the Sox have added as many seats as they can to Fenway Park, the stadium still seats fewer than 37,000. And with the ever increasing salaries of top players, that's just not enough butts in the seats. That has meant rising ticket prices and a club of truly diehard fans called Red Sox Nation who are willing to pay an annual membership fee to get first dibs on tickets. Then there are those who will do anything for a buck and buy hundreds of tickets and then mark them up to thousands of dollars and sell them on the Internet, at places such as Stub Hub.

For me and many others, seeing the Sox is almost impossible. It's actually cheaper in many cases for fans to pay for airline tickets and lodging to see the Sox play in places such as Toronto, Baltimore, and even St. Petersburg, Fla. But if you don't have extra money to throw around, forget it.

I didn't find out that the parade was today until yesterday afternoon. By then, it was too late to make any kind of arrangements with my friend – who now lives just outside of Boston – for me to take a bus or even drive down there to spend the night. Were the parade to be held Thursday, I definitely would have been able to get down there. I probably would have been able to get down there for a parade tomorrow.

So because the parade is today and New England fans got less than a day's notice, most of us will not get to see our team. Most of the Sox' adolescent fans – most of whom couldn't stay up until the wee hours of the morning to see any of the World Series games entirely – won't even be able to enjoy the parade because they will be in school.

I'm hesitant to call the decision a slap in the face to fans, but that may be the only way to describe it. I certainly understand that the players and coaches want to return to their permanent homes and rest after a long season. However, these guys are making millions of dollars to play a game. Would it inconvenience them that much to stick around for at least 48 more hours so the people who actually pay their salaries can enjoy the victory, too? Yeah, I do think the players owe it to us. They wouldn't be where they are if it weren't for us. A lot of us who can't afford to attend the games buy merchandise, the licensing fees for which go to the team. We stayed up until 1 o'clock in the morning to root the boys on. We listened or watched as many games as we could. We shed calories worrying when the Yankees made their second-half charge in the division.

But no. Instead, the players and the coaches and the city of Boston would rather tie up traffic on a work day in a city that is notorious for its poor layout of roads. They would rather inconvenience stores and other businesses that will lose money because customers either won't be able to get to the stores or because customers are busy attending the parade. Employees skipping work – with or without the grace of their bosses – will slow productivity.

When you consider the alternative, having the parade Saturday, the decision to have the parade today makes little sense. Having the parade on Saturday would not interfere with businesses and the associated traffic. It would actually increase some retail business because more people from outside of Boston would attend and end up shopping.

If the World Series had gone the full seven games, the players would have had to stick around anyway. So where the hell do they need to be? A few more days off won't make any difference in how they will enjoy the off-season overall.

Sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you try, you need happenstance to be on your side. Happenstance was certainly on my side Friday, as I finally captured on camera the black bear that has been lurking throughout City Forest in Bangor.

Actually, I didn't capture the black bear; I captured a previously unknown bear cub in what was unquestionably the most exhilarating encounter I have ever had with wildlife.

I started my daily ride at the forest late, heading out on East Trail at 6:09 p.m. The overcast sky that was threatening rain and the cool air had kept most people away, which was fine by me, as I think too many people use the forest without any appreciation for what it represents. My goal wasn't to stand off East Trail at the edge of the Orono Bog for 45 minutes in hopes the bear would appear. In fact, my mission yesterday was to map some new trails at the Bangor Land Trust's Walden-Parke Preserve, which is adjacent to the forest.

I rode to the end of East Trail and headed north onto the Veazie Railroad bed to check out the bog in case the moose I saw saunter through the middle of the forest last year was around. It was not. I turned around and went south, past City Forest, past the power lines that cut through the forest, and to the southern end of the Land Trust's latest acquisition, an 83-acre tract between the former rail bed and Kittredge Road.

The only wildlife I saw along the way was a snowshoe hare in the middle of the rail bed and a red squirrel who nearly ran under my front tire. One of the two beavers living in a newly flooded area near the power lines slapped its tail in the water when I passed its dam going to and from.

The sun struggled to emerge from behind the clouds, casting a surreal glow over the treetops. And then a light shower began. There was no place to seek cover, so I pedaled back past the power lines and to the shelter of some birch trees that hang low over the rail bed. I sat on my bike with my left foot on the ground and waited for the shower to stop.

I thought it would be funny if, as I sat looking to the north, the bear I had been searching for might pass behind me. Don't be silly, I told myself. Bears have an exceptional sense of smell. Besides, the rail bed is too open for the bear to venture onto when it's still light out.

Something moved in the trees ahead and to my right. I figured it was a porcupine or a squirrel scurrying about. In my experience, the smallest animals in the forest can make quite a racket all by themselves.

How else can I put it other than to say that seconds later, as I listened to rain drops dripping from leaf to leaf, a dark figure appeared through the brush, no more than 20 feet ahead of me. It was about 2 ½ feet high and black, and it made no sound as it walked through a small stretch of tall grass. Another black figure appeared next to it and slightly behind.

I couldn't believe what I was looking at: not one but two black bears heading straight for the rail bed in front of me. Neither had any idea I was only feet away. The larger bear's tan snout moved into the open and the bear stepped onto the dirt as it walked north. It stopped and turned to its left, its beady black eyes looking right me.

The mother bear jerked around and faced me and opened her mouth in surprise. She snorted and smacked her lips, the classic sign of a black bear's fear. The other bear retreated into the trees.

I quelled my urge to whip off my backpack and get my camera out, as I knew doing that would only scare the bear away. I needed to gain the mother bear's confidence, so I stood my ground.

The mother bear snorted and blew air from her nostrils and mouth. When I didn't move, she rose onto her hind legs, revealing a two-legged stance of about 5 feet. I was in awe, with a slight twinge of anxiety. What if all I had read about black bears not being aggressive was wrong? What if this was one of the few black bears prone to attack humans?

The mother bear teetered on her hind legs and tilted her head, much like a Labrador retriever does when it doesn't understand something.

I don't know whether I thought it or said it under my breath.

I dismounted my bike slowly and took my backpack off. The bear dropped down onto her front feet, but continued to stand in front of me, not more than 25 feet away. When I unzipped the pack, though, she thudded away and back onto the trail she had come from. I knelt and listened. She hadn't run away. Heavy footsteps against the soft peat under the pine needles told me she was still nearby. Looking through the trees, I saw two black figures moving. For some reason, neither bear was leaving.

I looked up at the trees. Nothing was there. I turned the corner and took a few steps onto the trail the bears had disappeared down, hoping to get a shot of them leaving.

Nervous breathing interrupted the silence, followed by whimpering. I backed up and looked up at the trees again. A large cub was clutching a tree trunk, about 20 to 25 feet above the ground. Its arm looked like that of a large monkey's as it hoisted itself higher before turning and peering at me from around the trunk. I took a few shots before the cub then descended, disappearing into the brush.

That was it. I didn't hear or see either bear again in the 20 minutes I stayed.

I walked a few feet down the trail they had come from and found several rotting logs that had been torn and shredded for insects.

Eventually I resumed my ride, a smile on my face. I hoped to run into the two again, but it didn't matter if I didn't. Bears have good memories. Hopefully when we meet again they will remember that I didn't harm them and they will pose for better photos.

As I did a quick shopping run at Hannaford later, I felt privileged as I walked up and down the aisles. How many of the two dozen or so customers in there with me had come face to face with a wild black bear only hours earlier? How many of them knew that black bears are not the savages people think they are? The only thing we should fear is driving these beautiful animals out of their homes. It is a blessing for us here in Maine – the state with the most black bears this side of the Mississippi River – to be able to share the land with these creatures and be able to watch them in their natural habitat. As long as we are mindful of the impact our "development" can have on black bears and other wildlife and respect their needs, we should be able to exist together just fine.

Now if I can just get momma bear to stay for some photos, perhaps for even a few "group" shots under better lighting...

I had my first encounter with a black bear when I was 8 or 9 years old. My family was living in Belfast, out on Route 52, not far from the Northport town line. It was a late summer day and I was riding my beat-up, secondhand bike on the dirt road behind the house. A cub ran out from some bushes near the garden and approached me.

Remembering tales that where there is baby bear, momma bear is lurking, I panicked, jumped off my bike, and ran back to the house.

I didn't see another black bear in the wild until Oct. 5, 2005, when I was riding along East Trail at City Forest here in Bangor. That day was one of the few I have taken my bike out for a ride without my camera. It was late in the afternoon as I rode merrily along, between Moose Trail and Squirrel Trail. I then saw what I thought was a black dog leap out of the brush to the left of the trail and jump over a log.

I then realized that what I had seen was unusually large for a dog, and unusually skittish for one, too. When I passed where the bear had been, I heard the animal bounding through the trees on its way toward the Orono bog.

I kicked myself for not having my camera.

Since then, I have been looking out for the bear. I've seen dozens of shredded and torn stumps and logs the bear has picked apart in search of insects for food. I've photographed a paw print on East Trail near Rabbit Trail. I've sat for hours in the brush on the edge of the bog, enduring thousands of mosquito bites.

When I took my nephew for a stroll on the Orono Bog boardwalk late last June, a handful of ladies leaving the boardwalk told me they had just seen a bear on the boardwalk itself. They half-jokingly suggested that I might not want to continue.

I was all set. I took my camera out with my medium zoom lens and I had my sister's camcorder with me as well.

Alas, my nephew and I did not see or hear the bear.

But two weeks later as I returned to the parking lot at the forest after taking a quick ride early in the evening on the Fourth of July, I heard a stirring in the brush to my right, off Shannon Drive. There it was, the black bear, skipping away. I stopped and watched. The bear turned around. We looked at each other. Unfortunately, I had not brought my camera.

The bear ambled deep into the woods.

After that, I even resorted to visiting the forest in the early morning on a few occasions, biking out to a bench near where I had first seen the bear and waiting. But all I ever got were mosquito bites.

I wasn't the only one who saw the bear in City Forest back in October 2005. Others saw it, too, and told City Hall, which put signs up on the kiosks at the Kittredge Road and Tripp Drive gates to the park. "Warning," the signs said in large, bold letters before encouraging anyone seeing the bear to contact the city.

I have no intention of going out of my way to tell the city where and when I see the bear, because it seems to me the city would rather remove the bear from the area so it doesn't frighten away the hundreds of hikers and bikers who venture into the forest every week. As the reaction from the women I met at the boardwalk last year indicates – and the nervous reaction from the boardwalk docent when he realized he had "locked" my nephew and me onto the boardwalk upon returning from our walk – people don't understand wildlife, and therefore fear it.

That's strange, when you consider that people tend to say they are all for protecting wildlife habitats and that they wish they could see wildlife.

Just don't let that bear near me!

The truth us, black bears are shy creatures who would rather run away from us humans than charge us. Hunters have such a difficult time tracking down the bears they insist on being able to put bait out and set traps. Also, it is a myth that momma bear will quickly intercede if a human approaches her cub. Bears are so elusive because, although they have poor eyesight, they have an exceptional sense of smell. The mother bear is far more likely to usher her cubs up a tree than to wait around for you to appear.

That is not to say you should try going up to a black bear in hopes of shaking its front paw and inviting it to a picnic lunch of honey and jelly doughnuts.

After being caught for the second time without my camera last July, I have vowed to go to the forest "armed" every time from now on. I didn't bother taking my camera last July because it was overcast and near sunset. But I would rather get something on the camera instead of nothing.

So imagine my excitement last Friday evening when, as I was approaching the end of East Trail, a black figure scooted out of the brush to the left of the trail, ran along the trail for a few feet, and then booted it down a path cut for a survey line.

I immediately stopped, whipped off my backpack, loaded a second set of batteries into my camera just in case, and walked slowly to where the bear had been. It was 7:25 p.m. and the light was still decent. I listened intently for moving brush and scanned the trees above me in case the bear had taken refuge above ground.

Unfortunately, he was gone. A few minutes later, a mountain biker noisily came over the embankment leading down to the Veazie Railroad bed and passed me – going the wrong way. It should have been evident to the guy that I was stalking something, but he broke the "silence" by saying hello. Had the guy gone the correct way, down West Trail, he might have flushed the bear back toward me.

For my lost effort, I came away with a photo of a 3-foot garter snake sticking its tongue out at me.

Since last Friday, I have intensified my search for the bear. I have sat still for 45 minutes at a time near where I saw the bear in 2005 and last week, listening intently for him, camera ready. I even bought a mosquito head net the other day to ease the annoyance of mosquitos, blackflies, and horseflies. The other night a horsefly bite on my right hand caused my hand to swell considerably, and it's still swollen.

I've patrolled the forest's major trails and access roads numerous times, looking around and listening. I've even changed my strategy by spending an evening biking almost entirely on the nearby Walden-Park Preserve, adjacent to the forest and owned by the Bangor Land Trust. I've recorded the coordinates onto my GPS receiver of bear signs: bark stripped from trees, claw marks on logs.

Yet the beast remains elusive, hidden in the shadows of the trees, leaving me with photos of a snake, frogs, and a red squirrel.

I'm pretty sure I know where his den is. And someday I will see him again. I just hope I'll be ready, because all I ask is for a couple of minutes of his time for a photo shoot; then I'll leave him alone.

The assignment editor and news director were apparently taking the day off at WABI-TV here in Bangor yesterday. The station aired an embarrassingly bad and short-sighted story on a call for a May 15 boycott of gasoline purchases, using a chain e-mail message as its primary source.

The boycott is supposed to send a message to oil companies to lower their prices by cutting off their revenue for a day.

There are so many things wrong with this silly idea it's hard to choose where to begin.

First, the people pushing for the boycott probably filled their tanks on May 14 if they were due to run out on May 15, or they will simply buy gasoline on May 16. Either way, the oil companies will still get all of the money they would have made on May 15 were there not a boycott.

Second, the oil companies don't even get their money directly from consumers anyway.

Third, the boycott would have no effect on the consumption of gasoline and diesel for airplanes, commercial vehicles, trains, and other oil-powered devices – including your home's furnace.

Despite these glaringly obvious shortcomings with the proposed boycott, WABI reporter Adrienne Bennett's only on-camera interviews were with a poor gasoline station owner in Bingham who said his station would honor the boycott by refusing to sell any fuel on May 15 and a couple of his customers who were essentially blind-sided into commenting without thinking. Bennett's report didn't point out how effective a boycott would be. Reporting 101 required her to ask an economist to comment.

The result was a story that didn't present actual news but a skewed viewpoint that probably gave a few hundred viewers the false idea that a gasoline boycott might actually work.

Even worse, Bennett reported that a boycott in April 1997 successfully dropped fuel prices an average of 30 cents "overnight." But she cited no source for her claim. No wonder: the source was a chain e-mail message that has been circulating around the Internet. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, no such price drop happened.

The Bangor Daily News doesn't escape criticism on this story, either, as it published a letter in its May 11 issue urging people to participate in the boycott. The editors should have spotted the letter for what it was and tossed it into the trash.

I've always looked forward to April. It marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring here in Maine. When April comes around, I can finally take my bike out on the trails at Bangor City Forest. April also marks the return of baseball season. On a more personal level, I celebrate my birthday on April 7.

It is the month of hope: hope that the Red Sox will make it to the playoffs in October and win another World Series, hope that the coming summer will be the best yet, and hope that I can have another successful year umpiring.

But last year at this time, April turned from being a month of hope and promise to being a month of despair and sadness, as my best friend, Sara, died.

To those who have never had the pleasure of loving a pet and having a pet love them, Sara was "just" a cat. She was more than a cat to me, though. She was a companion, a buddy, a confidant. No matter how bad things seemed to get in my life, I could always depend on Sara to climb up to my face when I woke up and greet me at the door when I came home.

She showed up on my family's porch one morning in July 1994. She kept coming back, even though we tried to shoo her away. When it became apparent she had no place to go, my parents and I took her in. Unfortunately, the current resident female feline in the house, Polly, didn't want a sister. Polly tormented Sara constantly, forcing her to stay in my parents' bedroom or face an attack. It was not much of a life for Sara to live, and we tried our best to protect her and integrate her into the family. We just couldn't see taking her to the shelter and leaving her future up to a possibly crueler fate.

When I moved out on my own two years later, I took Sara with me. For some reason that first night she lived alone with me, I felt bad, as though I had ripped her away from her family. She had no idea what was happening or where she was. One hour she was hunkered underneath my parents' bed, ever on the lookout for Polly. The next hour she was being driven across town in the dark.

I was with her, and that's all that mattered to her, though.

Sara fell in love with her new home. She no longer had to worry about being tackled in the litter pan. She no longer had to hide under a bed. She could run around whenever she wanted, without fear. She could eat whenever she wanted – no one was going to steal her food, and no one was going to pounce on her. She had toys. And, a couple of months after moving in with me, she had her own window perch to watch the street corner below.

She was sassy. She didn't like to be held for more than a couple of seconds, or she would growl and scratch. She always made sure I knew when she was out of food: She would walk on my head if I was sleeping or pick an important school paper or two to rip to wake me.

She wasn't a lap cat. Nor was she a furniture cat. She just liked lying on her perch in front of the window or napping at my feet while I was on the computer.

Sara never complained (except when it came to food, of course). There were days when I was in school in which I would have to be on campus at 8:15 a.m. and I wouldn't return home until as late as 3 a.m. the next day after working all night at the student newspaper. Sara would always be there at the door to greet me. No doubt, she could distinguish my gait aside from others'.

In summer 2000, I got Sara a harness and a leash so I could take her out in the backyard. Taking her out had always been something I had wanted to do, but the thought of people thinking I was crazy to walk a cat had held me back.

No more. Letting Sara roam free was never an option, as statistically outdoor cats live very short lives after dealing with cars and trucks, abusive people, wild animals, other cats, dogs, chemicals stored inappropriately, and extreme weather. While Sara had no problem living in our small apartment and watching the world through her window, there was so much more out there for her to see.

Even though she didn't like to be held for more than a few seconds, Sara took surprisingly well to the harness. She never protested when I had her test it out inside. So after only a few practices inside, Sara was ready to conquer the world – if only in her backyard.

The loud sounds of the nearby business district scared her that first time out, and she begged to return to the apartment after only a few minutes on the front steps. But later that day, she woke me up from my nap, scratching the door and crying to go back out. She cried and scratched for the entire week after that. It got so annoying I couldn't think when I tried to write. I had to block Sara's access to the door so she wouldn't do anything more than the superficial damage she had already done.

But as we went outdoors more and more, Sara calmed down, although there were times I would catch her standing on her hind legs at the door and trying to turn the doorknob with her front paws. She was one very intelligent cat.

Sara soon became a celebrity with the neighbors. Sara would be leading me around the backyard and people would say hi as they passed us. Quite a few asked what her name was; some asked whether they could pat her. Sara was only comfortable around me, though, so she would shy away from others and brush against me.

Our backyard was our playground. Sara could stalk invisible prey through the tall grass around the back perimeter of the yard. She could bat at butterflies. She could fantasize about catching the squirrels that bounded in front of us. She could rub the side of her face in fallen pine needles. She could roll around in the dirt. She could leap over fallen leaves. And she could just sit tall and pretty overlooking the yard and bob her nose up and down, breathing in the fresh Maine air.

The following spring, Sara had more than proved herself on the leash, so I felt comfortable taking her out at night. Yes, we would be wandering around in the shadows some nights at 3 a.m. Those midnight outings were the most exciting. One night I was sitting on the front steps and reading a magazine as Sara ate some grass nearby. What I thought was a small black and white cat appeared from around a tree and walked up to me. Sara had her back to me. I paused and then pulled the magazine back to reveal a baby skunk smelling the ground at my feet. I glanced at Sara.

I stayed put, knowing that skunks spray only to defend themselves. When Sara turned around, she stared at the critter and gulped down the last blade of grass in her mouth. I told her to come to me and to leave "it" alone.

And she did. She walked slowly to me. I waited for her to hiss and spit and to be blasted with a foul stench, but Sara did nothing but walk over to me. The skunk, not paying any attention to either of us, walked away, giving us time to walk into the vestibule so we could wait it out.

On another midnight excursion, a small raccoon emerged from a nearby cedar bush, looked at me, then at Sara, and turned around and left, with an expression that could have been of "Sorry, wrong house."

On two occasions Sara somehow got out of her harness. The first time it happened, a drunk neighbor who approached us one late afternoon spooked her. She tried to get away from him, and she succeeded, slipping one leg out of the harness and then her head. I hadn't felt that much fear in a long time as I watched her scramble about 30 feet away, heading toward the street below. I wanted to yell at the drunk to get away, but I had the presence of mind to know that would probably scare Sara even more. Fortunately, the drunk turned around and left.

I got on my knees, heart beating rapidly, and extended my right hand toward Sara. I told her everything was all right and asked whether she wanted some Pounce, a popular cat treat. I walked to her slowly and she cautiously took a few steps toward me. I resisted the urge to grab her before I was on top of her.

She got some extra "good girls" and Pounce that day.

The second time she slipped her harness, neither she or I knew it. We were sitting way back in the yard; I in my Coleman folding chair with my notebook computer, writing, and Sara sitting on the ground. She always became impatient when I wanted to write outdoors, so she would walk around the chair and get tangled.

When I finished writing and pulled on the leash, I pulled the harness right up with it. Sara was none the wiser, though. I calmly patted and then held her and put the harness right back on her.

She was a very photogenic cat and didn't have any problems with a camera in her face. One fall day I threaded her leash through my camera bag to anchor her to it so I could step back farther to take photos. But when I opened up the tripod, Sara got spooked and ran, dragging the bag – tumbling end over end – with her. Anyone who saw that must have had a good laugh to see some thirty-something guy high-tailing it across the yard, camera in hand, chasing a cat dragging a bag.

I will never forget out outings together. Sara's enjoyment walking around the green grass and breathing in fresh summer air taught me to take a break from staring at a computer screen all day. Her desire to get outside for a half hour every day forced me to slow down and relax a bit more.

My most memorable outing with Sara came a little more than a year and a half ago. It was early morning with the sun rising behind an overcast August sky. It began raining softly by the time we reached the front door. I thought we might be able to squeeze 10 minutes in outside by standing under a blue spruce tree nearby. Sara had other plans, as she led me all over the place in the rain. Every time I asked whether she wanted to go inside, she would lead me farther away from the building.

That outing was the most fun we ever had.

By that time, Sara and I had our routine down to a science. When I was ready to take her out, all I had to do was say, "You wanna go out?" and she would jump down from her perch and go to the door or perk up from a nap and go to the door. She would sit and wait for me to get her set up. Off we would go down the two flights of stairs. Although she would hiss and spit sometimes when we had to go back inside earlier than usual because I had someplace to go (I would hiss and spit right back at her and she would stop), more often than not she knew that when my watch's timer sounded it was time to head back. She would turn around and walk back to the front door with me. On days I didn't set the timer, she would still start to head back at the correct time.

"You don't have a cat," my youngest sister said when I showed her a video of Sara returning to the building on her own volition at the end of an outing, "you have a dog."

Back on the second floor, I would let go of her leash and let her zip around the corner and race up the stairs to our apartment. She'd be standing at the door waiting for me. Inside, she would get a handful of Pounce and fresh water and take a nap.

I was her world. If I was watching television or a movie, all I had to do was ask Sara whether she wanted to join me, and she would, lying on the floor next to me, her head resting on the arm of my husband pillow.

You always think your pet is going to live forever, although you know it won't be true. My family had an outdoor cat live to be 18 ½. Another outdoor cat lived to be 16. Polly lived to be 16, dying in July 2005 of heart failure. With Sara's estimated age of 13 in summer 2005, I thought she would reach 15 without a problem. She had always been healthy.

I must have sensed something was wrong, though, late in the summer of 2005. For the first time ever, she refused to go on a walk one excellent summer evening. On one particularly hot summer day, I returned home to find her resting with her chin on her empty water dish. I had always given her fresh water when I got up, when I fed her, and when I went to bed. On another occasion, she peed outdoors. For most cats, that wouldn't be abnormal. But for Sara, it was, as she had always led me back to the building whenever she had to go to the bathroom.

Around late August that year, I noticed that Sara had begun to lose weight. At her annual checkup a month later, the vet said she wanted to see Sara in six months instead of 12, to check Sara's thyroid. A few weeks later, Sara became increasingly affectionate, jumping onto my desk and insisting that she sleep on the computer keyboard or on the mouse pad.

It was not a good year. In July, Polly had died. In November, my parents' 13-year-old Sheltie, Tess, died of cancer. After Tess's death, I wondered whether something might be wrong with Sara. In Polly's case with heart disease, the first symptoms were mild: awkward breathing that came and went and one pupil dilating fully. With Tess, nothing was apparent until she stopped eating and a radiograph revealed a tumor in her throat.

Something was off with Sara that November. I wondered whether I was just being paranoid after seeing Polly and Tess die. I didn't want to waste money on a visit to the vet.

But a responsible pet owner must be prepared to make sacrifices, and my love and bond with Sara were so strong I wanted the thyroid test done sooner, as she was clearly losing weight and had begun spending more time at her water dish.

The vet managed to squeeze Sara in right before the extended Thanksgiving weekend. I didn't want to wait five days.

A quick check of Sara's blood at the vet's ruled out diabetes. The vet said Sara might have hyperthyroidism, which results in rapid weight loss. If Sara did, the condition could be treated easily with medication. A more thorough blood test would tell us more.

I left with Sara, relieved that she didn't have diabetes and hoping it was just hyperthyroidism. But when I returned home, the vet called with the results of the full blood test. Sara had two problems, the vet told me: She did have an overactive thyroid. She also had a high creatinine level.

What did that mean?

Sara's kidneys were failing.

The vet wanted me to bring Sara back in the day after Thanksgiving for a weekend of IV fluids and antibiotics to flush the kidneys out in hopes of dropping the creatinine level down. Sara's level was 6.8. The high end of the normal range was 2.4.

My anxiety level rose to an all-time high in an instant. I had always feared that Sara would come down with a terrible illness that would prove too expensive to treat.

How much time did Sara have? I asked.

The vet said there was no way to tell, but that she had one cat live another five years after being diagnosed with kidney failure.

What happens if we don't treat the disease? I asked.

Sara wasn't in any pain, the vet said, but she was probably feeling a bit uncomfortable. Eventually Sara would become dehydrated and her kidneys would shut down. How long that would take was anybody's guess.

In my family, pets are not pieces of furniture or other decor. We give them the best care we can. My parents taught me by example that we must fulfill our responsibilities to our pets, especially in their time of need.

The following 36 hours were some of the most uncomfortable hours in my life. I feared that Sara would die before she could be hospitalized. I then feared that she would die at the vet's and I wouldn't be with her. I feared that I took her out of the apartment that Friday that she would never be back. I feared that we had taken our last walk together in the backyard. Sara had climbed trees in the backyard only a few days before being diagnosed. How could she be dying?

I slept the next two nights in the livingroom on the futon so I could be closer to Sara. Although she took naps on the bed with me, she never would stay when I actually went to bed. I was going to her, because she needed me, and I needed her.

Every time she went to the water dish, I watched. Every time she went to her food dish, I watched, fearing that she would just sit and stare at her beloved tuna – the only food she would ever touch, aside from shredded salmon.

On a cold and snow-covered November Friday morning, I took Sara to the vet's for her treatment. My emotions no longer stayed in my head; they coursed through my veins and my nerves. I thought of how one of my sisters' cats died from liver failure while at a hospital more than 15 years earlier, and how I heard the phone ring that morning, the call coming from the hospital. My sister was out of state on vacation and didn't even know her cat was sick. My parents made the arrangements.

I waited for my own dreaded call with Sara. Meanwhile, I spent most of the weekend researching chronic renal failure in cats and hyperthyroidism. I learned that Sara's daily home treatment would be a little more involved than a simple injection, such as with treating diabetes. Sara would actually need to receive subcutaneous fluids every day. That meant learning how to insert a needle under her skin so her body could receive a saline solution to keep her hydrated.

I wondered whether I could do it. What if I punctured an organ? How was I going to keep Sara still for the five or so minutes it would take for a fluid session? This was a cat who did not like to be held for more than a few seconds. How could I possibly administer the treatment by myself?

The vet left updates on my answering machine that Saturday and Sunday, saying that Sara was tolerating her treatment very well and that she was a very affectionate cat. That Monday, I called in the afternoon to learn the results of a second blood test, which would tell us how effective the intensive treatment was.

Her creatinine level had dropped from 6.8 to 5.6 – not as much as we had hoped for.

The experience placed a heavy burden on me. I value life. I also value dignity. I didn't want to prolong Sara's life if it would cause her any pain. I didn't want to prolong her life for my sake. Some members of my family said they would have put Sara to sleep upon hearing the diagnosis. These same relatives were also the ones who seemed most squeamish at the thought of inserting a needle into a cat.

The concept of "quality of life" reverberated with me at all hours when I brought Sara home from the vet's. I had seen several family pets die, most recently my parents' cat Polly and dog, Tess. Polly was clearly in discomfort in her final days, crying every few minutes, drooling, and having trouble breathing. Tess was never going to eat again. Sara, on the other hand, didn't appear to be in much discomfort. The vet said she was probably just tired. She was still eating, she was still walking, and she was aware of her surroundings – those were the keys.

After Sara returned home, I watched her closer than I had ever watched any high-profile baseball game I had umpired. I kept looking over my shoulder while at my desk, checking to see whether she was in distress. I held my breath every time she ate, fearing that she would walk away without eating much.

Surprisingly, she took to her new diet very well upon returning home. To help her kidneys, she had to eat prescription food. This was a huge change for a cat who demanded nothing but tuna. The first few weeks of home treatment went OK. She scratched me a few times, the needle came out a few times, I made some bad needle-sticks, and other times Sara just wouldn't let me get near her with the fluid bag. Giving her a pill for her thyroid was even more difficult. I would have to struggle with her to get her mouth open long enough to drop the pill inside. Like most cats, she had a way of making it look as though I had succeeded, only to leave the pill behind when I let her go or worse, spit it out later after I had left the room.

I hated those struggles, so I tried hiding them in pie mix, as suggested by the vet. The trick worked a couple of times, but Sara caught on.

Almost two weeks after returning home from being hospitalized, Sara stopped eating for the first time. I begged her to eat her prescription dry food, but she ignored it. She wanted her beloved tuna, which had probably been responsible for her kidney disease. She wasn't going to eat any other way, so I put tuna in sauce down for her. She ate immediately. I then tried hiding her thyroid pills in the tuna, but she wasn't stupid. She would eat all the way around the pill, leaving it alone in the dish.

Next, I tried crushing the pill and sprinkling the resulting residue throughout the tuna. It wasn't a perfect solution to the problem by any means, but it worked better, as she ate it.

As the weeks went on, I became more confident with my ability to give Sara fluids. She then became more comfortable with the procedure. She no longer hissed or scratched. She would sit patiently while I patted her and talked to her. When she was most comfortable, I needed only a few minutes to give her 100 milliliters of solution. If she was uncomfortable, it sometimes took more than five minutes.

Winter had set in, making it too cold to take Sara outdoors. So I walked her around the hallways of my apartment building at night. On nights it snowed, we would sit in front of the third-floor hall window and watch the snowplows go by below. As with when we went outdoors, I let Sara dictate where we went. Some nights we kept going up and down the two flights of stairs. On other nights we just sat in front of the third-floor window and looked at the snow falling or the full moon beginning to set in the west. Then there were the nights when a squirrel living in the outside wall had Sara hurrying up and down the indoor fire escape steps to the window, nose to the wall and floor with each squeak from the creature within, as I liked to call the squirrel.

The weather warmed up enough toward the end of December for us to actually go outdoors one afternoon – the latest we had ever gone outside. When I began taking Sara out in 2000, the temperature had to be at least 50 degrees for me to take her out, because she was used to the warm apartment. Later, I lowered the minimum temperature to 40 degrees.

We made the most of every outing we could get during the mild winter. Sara still led me around the backyard, smelling the fallen leaves, the trees, and the dead grass. Even when it sprinkled on one of our mid-winter outings, she insisted that we spend as much time outdoors as possible: she simply led me onto the porch, where we could be dry.

A check on Sara's blood in late December showed that her creatinine had climbed to 6.3, but the vet told me the value was so close to that of when Sara left the hospital that it wasn't anything to be alarmed about; she was holding steady.

There was a time I thought that Sara would be one of those cats who would live a year or more beyond her diagnosis. As the winter wore on, we took advantage of more mild days to cavort in the low afternoon sunlight. When it was too cold to go out, we walked the hallways. All I had to do was say the magic words – "Sara, do you wanna go out?" – and she would appear from wherever.

In February, her creatinine level dropped to 5.9 and her thyroid functioning was normal.

In mid-March, however, Sara's health gradually worsened. She was refusing all of the prescription dry food and would eat only her tuna. She began spending the bulk of her time in the bedroom. In late-January, she had begun sleeping on the bed even when I went to sleep. Her fluid sessions continued to be perfect. She then suffered a seizure one afternoon outside of the apartment door after we had come back inside from an outing. Her appetite began to wane and she began to lick the ground outside – a classic symptom of anemia. Because her appetite was declining, she wasn't getting all of her thyroid medicine. I tried giving her a compounded version of her thyroid medicine, in which the medicine was put in little cat treats. I was delighted when she ate the treats with the medicine. But my delight turned to shock when I found out the price for a month's supply.

As much as I hoped that Sara would bounce back again, I knew the end was coming. I just wanted her to see another warm summer day, with green grass and leaves on the trees. Although I had already been cherishing every outing with her, I cherished each additional outing even more. I took my camera out every time.

By late March, we were going outdoors regularly. Sara soon staked claim to a large oak tree in the back of the yard that towered over the other trees. In mid-afternoon, the sunlight was warm and strong against the trunk, and Sara took advantage of the location to lie down and close her eyes. We would spend more than a half hour sitting under that naked tree, in the sunlight, at times.

On April 7 – my birthday – Sara had her next checkup. I knew she wasn't doing well. Still, the shock when the veterinary assistant called later with Sara's latest creatinine level hit me. It was 10.1.

I had already begun the grim task of researching euthanasia. I hated doing it with Sara in the next room. I checked Sara's functioning to a checklist. She passed on each item, but barely. I didn't want to make a mistake. Euthanasia is permanent. I didn't want to cut her life shorter than it needed to be. Nor did I want to prolong it to the point she was in pain. I didn't want to regret a decision either way.

Quite often you hear pet owners who have had to euthanize a pet mention "the look" in the pet's eyes when the pet had endured enough. I remembered making the painful decision to have my Labrador retriever, Peppy, put to sleep 14 years earlier. Peppy had grown up with me, from second grade through my first year of college. But like a lot of Labs, she had hip dysplasia that soon allowed arthritis to develop. In her last months, she had troubling standing up. Then she had trouble standing. Then one day she fell down trying to lead me on a walk. Her brown eyes looked up at me, with sorrow and confusion. She didn't know why she couldn't walk anymore.

There is no good day to die. How can you plan death? The thought repulsed me. I rearranged my baseball schedule so I could spend more time with Sara in her final days. I passed up clinics and meetings. Time is a precious commodity. Once it's gone, you can never get it back.

Despite her poor numbers, Sara had a good weekend. My sister and her infant son came over to visit Sara and me outside. My nephew was 11 months old. He liked all cats and wanted to take Sara's leash. He had no idea that she was dying. He won't remember that sunny Sunday afternoon. He won't remember Sara. He'll have only photos and video of himself with Sara and me in the backyard.

Once again, Sara led me to the large oak tree and sunned herself. She was happy. I felt terrible for wanting her to die there. It would have been fitting.

A few days later, I met with the vet, without Sara. I told her I didn't know what to do. I showed her photos that ranged from September through the day before, so she could see how Sara's condition had progressed. We discussed Sara's quality of life. Sara was still eating, but very little. She was getting a high-caloric vitamin supplement, her fluid sessions were perfect, and she was still able to walk around outdoors. But she could no longer climb into the litter pan and she spent all of her time indoors in the bedroom.

Getting Sara to take her thyroid medication was a losing cause, though. She had begun to refuse the compounded treats. Treatment of both conditions turned from maintenance to palliative. The vet said that as long as Sara was eating something, able to walk, and showed signs of enjoying the outdoors, it probably wasn't "time." We could help her body fight the anemia by giving her a Vitamin B injection with cortisone, which would give her more energy.

Sara had the injection the next day, and the result was very promising. She perked up when we returned home and began to eat more. The next day, she ate all of her food – albeit the tuna and not the prescription dry food. She was scheduled to get another injection the following Friday.

The improvement was Sara's last rally, though. A few days later, she barely ate anything. She was still walking outdoors, though. That's how much she loved going out.

I ate my supper on the floor in the bedroom by Sara's side. I watched television on my old 12-inch black-and-white set. I wrote in there, too.

I knew that Sara's visit to the vet's that Friday would be her last.

That Thursday as we prepared to go outside, Sara collapsed in front of the door and cried. It was past noon and the vet's office had closed early, but I called anyway and left a message for someone to get back to me. If Sara wasn't in any pain, she most certainly was uncomfortable.

Nobody checked the messages, so nobody called me back. Perhaps that was Fate's way of giving Sara and me one last night together. We eventually went outside for more than an hour. She lay on her left side almost the entire time. It was sunny and warm. I patted her almost the whole time and lay next to her as the sun set behind a hill on the west side of Bangor. I stepped back with my camera to take Sara's last photos. She struggled to her feet, walked a few yards, and lay down and looked straight ahead. It must have taken all of her strength to do that. For the only time in probably 800 outings, I hadn't put Sara's harness and leash on her. She wasn't going anywhere. In Peppy's final days, I still tied her out on the run, but out of respect. I think it made her feel special. In Sara's case, however, leaving the harness and leash off for that last outing represented freedom.

The only time I wasn't by Sara's side that day was when I took 15-20 minutes to get my supper at a Burger King drive-thru. When I returned, I carried Sara into the living room and we watched "Field Of Dreams," one of my favorite films. I had made it a tradition to watch the film at the beginning of every baseball season. After the movie, I wrote in my journal on the floor by Sara's side.

I didn't want to go to bed that night. I wanted to spend every last minute with Sara awake. But we both needed rest. Her appointment, originally for another Vitamin B and cortisone injection, was at 11 a.m. I figured I would go to bed early (for me) so I could get up early (for me) and perhaps take Sara out one last time.

I checked on her throughout the night, anxiety waking me every hour or so. Her breathing had become deliberate. At 9:02 a.m., my alarm sounded. I turned it off and stepped back into bed to rest my eyes. I told Sara I wanted to rest my eyes for a bit before getting up. A minute later, Sara let out a mournful cry. I stumbled out of bed and knelt next to her. She convulsed twice. I moved her away from the vomit, which was nothing but bile, and caressed her face while telling her repeatedly that I loved her. She struggled to turn her head to look at me and then let out a loud sigh.

Death had come at 9:05 a.m. on April 21 – two weeks after my birthday.

For the first time since moving out of my parents' house, I was truly alone.

I cried as I held Sara and looked out the bedroom window and into a perfectly blue sunny morning sky. Although sadness enveloped me, I was also relieved. Relieved that I wouldn't have to sign a form authorizing the vet to put Sara to sleep. Relieved that Sara was no longer in any discomfort. Relieved that I could finally find peace after months of anguish and wondering when the end would come. Relieved that at least I had almost five months to prepare to say goodbye. Relieved that Sara and I had made the most of those remaining months.

Some people would prefer that if they are going to lose their pet, they do so quickly and with as little warning as possible. I am not one of those people. "Goodbye" is not a word I like. Those who prefer a quick end probably do so for their own sanity. Although it is true that Sara's last few months had me constantly on edge, at least I knew the end was coming and could make the most of the days remaining and not worry about what I could have done or should have done.

In those short months, I learned more than I had ever wanted to know about biology, kidneys, spirituality, the ethics of life and death, friendship, independence, sacrifice, and bereavement. Yes, I had lost several pets before Sara. But Sara was the first pet who had depended solely on me. She was the first pet I bore full responsibility for. I realized that, for some people, euthanasia is an option considered not to ease any real or perceived pain or suffering on the pet's behalf, but to ease the suffering of those caring for the pet as they wonder when the last breath will be taken, endure the stress of administering treatment, and even wrestle with deciding what is in the best interest of the pet – a loved one who cannot express in words what her preference is.

Nobody can ever give you a correct answer in the matter. There may not even be a correct answer.

In the hour immediately after her death, I felt cold and alone in a vast universe. But an odd feeling came over me the following Monday: I felt warm again. I recalled feeling Sara's front paws on my right shoulder as I held her. Toward the end of her life, she became more amenable to hugs. "Everybody needs a hug," I always said when I picked her up. I said the same thing when I held her lifeless body while sitting on my bed and looking out into a perfect blue spring sky.

I so desperately had wanted her to see another leaf in full bloom. But life has a strange way of balancing the good with the bad. Had it not been for an unusually mild winter, I wouldn't have been able to take Sara outdoors 39 times from January through April. Some years we didn't get outdoors until after the first week of April. Had it not been for someone abandoning Sara in July 1994, I never would have known this beautiful gray and white cat. And had it not been for my parents' cat Polly refusing to accept Sara, I never would have gotten to know Sara as well as I did.

Sara's stubbornness – the independence that defined her – played an unfortunate role in her early death. The tuna she loved so much ended up poisoning her body slowly. Her eventual dismissal of the prescription food she accepted initially hastened the conclusion of her illness. But I can't fault her. Those attributes made Sara who she was. She was the perfect friend who came at the right time in my life. I could not have asked her for any more than she gave me in the nearly 12 years I knew her.

Those same attributes probably kept her going, as well, as not once did I ever see "the look" in Sara's eyes. Right up until the end – when she struggled to look at me in her last seconds – she didn't want to leave.

She waited until spring.

The afternoon of the day she died, I rode my bike around Bangor City Forest, stopping on the old Veazie Railroad bed on the edge of the Orono Bog to listen to the peepers and later sitting on the edge of the arboretum as twilight set in. As I had left my home, I looked put over the empty backyard that Sara and I had occupied less than 24 hours earlier. The oak tree was alone.

It took me more than seven months to pick up Sara's toys and put them, including her harness, leash, food, and water dishes, into a plastic storage box, along with tufts of fur she had shed before her last winter.

I never planned or expected this entry to run this long. But that's how special Sara was.