It’s been just over a year since Lucy disappeared. Somewhere along the way between then and now our hopes of ever seeing her gradually diminished until finally we have accepted that she is gone forever.
But I still miss her.
I find myself strangely unattached to the many cats in and around our house these days: Archer, Milo, Folds, Crybaby, not to mention the feral cat who just dropped a litter in our shed. They’re all nice in their own way, I suppose, but I don’t really care about them the way I did about Lucy.
Sometimes I think this is a defensive reaction, that I’m holding myself aloof to avoid getting hurt. We’ve lost too many cats in the past five years: Bilal, Van, Lucy, Biggs.
As sweet as they all were, none of them could compare to Lucy, and none of our current cats can hold a candle to her.
As an example of what made Lucy so special, consider this. Whenever I came back to the house, she always wanted to give me a kiss. She would jump up on a dresser or shelf and wouldn’t be satisfied until I had kissed her on the lips.
When I first moved to Bloomington, my orange kitty Rocky ran away within the first week. I was devastated and cried and cried. I can’t believe it has been a year since Lucy left. I remember Lee telling me about it. She was a beauty!
No words can me say to comfort thee except to say I feel sad too … yet, alas diversion can I give thee
Blaise Pascal: If our condition were truly happy, we would not seek diversion from it in order to make ourselves happy
I did so hope that Lucy would return – but it seems apt that you continue to be loved by other neighborhood cats. I love your line about the new litter.
re:Katrina as campaign issue – I think that it matters to a lot of Americans, but I dount that the politicians and sound bite arbiters will be able to use it well enough that it turns up in the debates. IMHO.
I don’t know what I would do if we lost one of ours. I know it’s silly to be so attached to animals, but I just can’t help it. We keep ours inside, so there’s not as much danger of them running away. They do, however, keep coming up with new and interesting ways to hurt themselves/each other.
Ooh, my boy wants a kitten for his birthday, and that’s just about six weeks away. Let me know about the shed babies if Xy doesn’t get to them first. Is there a brown one?
Carmen, no brown kittens per se but there is one that’s mostly black with an orange leg. A very interesting pattern. In any event, we’d be happy to get these kittens into homes.
[…] But though it sounds cold to say it, I never let Milo too close to my heart, for reasons previously mentioned. […]