Cats

[libby]

Years ago I saw a Walt Disney movie, Thomasina's Cat, if memory serves me correctly. Loved it. The  prelude was about Egyptians worshipping cats. 

I always had dogs, but spent a while recently with neither after my sweet English sheepdog died -- until a young relative visiting me brought in a tiny black and white kitten. His parents refused it, so I reluctantly took it in. And she, named Emma, changed my life.

(Sometimes I wonder if she's the reincarnation of someone sent back to watch over me as I stumble through life.) 

She is now about 2 years old, and somehow knows that I get up about 6 a.m., so at or about that time, she meows a time or two at my bedroom door, and if I don't make some movement, she bumps against the door. She knows when I'm going to the bathroom, and precedes me there. I recently noticed that after I finish, she walks away some distance and scratches the carpet, just as she does in her litter box after she "goes."

She knows when someone is at the door and meows before the doorbell rings. I have her water and food dishes at one end of the dining area table, and at about the time I usually eat, she follows me around. I fill her dish first. She stands there, not eating, until I sit down.  Then we both eat. There's more, but I think you get the picture.

?

[Palehorse]

Don't particularly care for the things, but we've had a couple; both for 15 years, each, and not at the same time. And both of them loved me for some reason. The last one would shame me into petting her, and would not rest until she was on my chest, facing me, and could give me a kiss. (Not licking, but putting her lips onto mine while purring like a chainsaw at high idle.)

Last one crossed over more than a year ago and is buried in the backyard. We knew her time was near, but to the end she loved our little pup too. I was going to bed and disovered her hallucinating and blind in the master bath. She was clearly in distress until I kneeled down next to her and gently stroked her while speaking to her. It was then I noticed her very labored breathing and the fact she clearly wanted me to pick her up. I couldn't.

I got dressed and went back downstairs to grab the mattocks and a shovel with which to dig her grave. My wife asked me if she was dead. "No. But she soon will be. " I went outside in the dark to dig her final resting place, beneath a pine tree that the pup loved.

As I was digging, my wife rushed upstairs and swaddled her in a beach towel, and picked her up and took her to the rocker downstairs. Pup stayed glued to her side, and the cat meowed her specific tones for him as my wife let him gently lick her face. My wife, as I had done upstairs, gently told her that it was okay for her to let go and move on. . .

I had finished digging her spot, and turned around to go back inside to check on how she was doing. My wife met me just outside the garage, carrying her all swaddled in that beach towel, with a river of tears running down her face. "She's gone baby. She died in my arms." 

Just a few months after we had watched her father cross over at his home, now my wife had also lost her beloved cat; a gift to her from me 15 years prior.  It broke my heart. . . And hers was broken again so soon. And now so was the pups heart. . .

We placed her into the spot I had prepared, covering her head with the flap of that towel. She fit perfectly into the spot I had prepared for her, and we thanked the universe for the gift of her companionship before I covered her with the earth I had displaced just a short few minutes previous.

Pup used to love marking that tree each time he went out, prior to the cats expiration. After her burial he would not go near the spot for several months, his tail tucking and head dropping every time he came near it. 

Just this fall he has started going back there, but now it is no,longer a spot to be marked. He lingers over her gravesite every time he goes out there now, but still will not mark or go potty there. He knows where his beloved friend lies, and he treats that spot with reverence. . .

He too is slowing down and growing weary in his 12th year in this place. My wife and I know his time draws nearer as each day passes, and while we've spoken of it a couple of times we both prefer to ignore it and instead make a point of relishing each day we have with him.

There is a flower bed to the right of the tree the cat is buried beneath, and it is surrounded by a series of stepping stone square tiles, arranged in the form of a pyramid. Whenever pup reaches his crossing point, the base of that pyramid will be his final resting place. He loves the flowers over there, and spends time smelling them each season when they are above ground. This is also a spot he refuses to use as a bathroom. I don't know if it is because he knows he's going to lay there one day, or if it is because he loves to sit out there with my wife as she tends to the flowers and pulls weeds from the bed. . . Perhaps it is both?

[libby]