When you really love a cat, he can adorn you with mucus on your forehead and you don\u2019t get mad – unless it\u2019s at yourself for not checking the mirror more often. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you really love a cat, rather than get upset when you\u2019re awakened by the snoring of Skeeter, whose chronic rhinitis can make her sound like a tiny donkey braying, you think it\u2019s adorable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you really love a cat, even when he\u2019s pugnacious with a capital P, as was the late, great Iggy Pop, you don\u2019t think he\u2019s evil or a jerk, but just lively and funny.\u00a0(Others in my family definitely felt otherwise. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n\n And I\u2019ve learned that you can STILL love a cat, even when it won\u2019t let you come close enough to touch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When you love a stray cat, even though you\u2019re late to a work meeting, you stay a bit longer to make sure the new guy at the farm gets his share, because the old dowager mama cat smacks him around when she\u2019s in a cranky mood, and his response, as a \u201czeta cat,\u201d is to run and hide, and your heart goes out to him because you\u2019ve been in his situation before. So you move his dish closer to him, and talk to him sweetly until he loses his fear and comes back out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And when you really love a stray cat, you stand like a crazy person on a bridge in the worst rain the area has seen in decades, calling the names of the two you feed who live beneath it, Lafcadio and Silver, fretting that they were washed away in the raging torrent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You shed tears of worry when they don\u2019t come, and tears of gratitude when they show up two days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just yesterday I saw a deeply moving example of what happens when you really love a cat. A woman who had just lost her 9-year-old cat to cancer offered Kitten’s toys, food and bed to me, so some other cat could benefit from her loss. She was putting on a brave face, but as she extended her arm to hand me Kitten’s pillow-bed, she retracted it again, and held it close. Then she lifted it to her face, so she could take a last whiff of Kitten’s sweet scent, before handing it to me in tears. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I felt her pain and understood her selflessness. Because when you really, really REALLY love a cat, even though you know he might have another week left of life, and you know you will miss him so terribly when he dies that it takes your breath away, you let him go. This one, my Wyatt, still purred slightly, but had lost the ability to eat and drink, or climb the stairs. And even though I was deeply attached to him, when you really love a cat, you make that phone call so he won’t suffer anymore, and you take him in and hold him tenderly while he slips away. And you make a makeshift altar with his photo, and flowers and eventually his ashes, perhaps concerned that you will forget him otherwise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Which is silly because you really loved him, and won\u2019t forget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This morning I said goodbye to Pokey as I usually do, with a hug and a kiss on top of his head as he lay in repose on my armchair. He usually responds with a sleepy purr, but today his … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/janeganahl.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/scary-iggy-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\")
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