I found a recently deceased fox, while on a search for my missing cat and faced reality. The fox had crawled into the hollow of an oak tree. The still bright fur had sloughed off the tail, but it appeared to have died in peace. The spread of the tree’s remaining limbs showed that it had grown out in the open. Now its mass was draped with mosses and lichens in a landscape filled in with woods. I went back to the tree a year later, with the lost cat’s brother, and found the skull, jaw bones, teeth, and vertebrae. I painted in honor of the fox, its beauty of form, and the processes of life and death, with love for the cat who was gone.