The Old Lady Cat

Chloe watches me type with interest, making an occasional comment if I glance her way. Without my really noticing, she has become old - heavier, darker, slightly slower, but just as ill tempered as always. She has never accepted the presence of other animals in ths house and has never met a another human for who she any use whatsoever. When she was younger, she sought out the high places - top shelves, a basket atop the refrigerator -

but now she spends her days sleeping in an old Ethan Allen chair in the guest room. She opts for the room used the least and she sleeps with one territorial eye open, listening for intruders and growling out warnings when they enter. I pray she wil be spared the indigities of old age but realistically I know that she and I will too soon be forced to make that one way trip to the vet. There is precious little comfort in knowing that she has had a good life, a long time, that she has been sheltered and loved every step of the way and will be missed. She is a fine cat, independent and feisty, stubborn and tempermental, a loner and a survivor, all the things that cats strive to be and all the things that I admire about them. She will not go gently.

I am comforted by the sure and certain knowledge that Joshua waits for her and will be glad to see her again. That he will watch over her as he did from the moment that he dragged her out from under the house, kicking and screaming, orphaned and barely six weeks old. She wasn't much to look at - scrawny, dirty, hungry - but Josh wouldn't take no for an aswer so into our lives she came.

I spend a few minutes with her each morning. She purrs fiercely and nuzzles under my chin, licking my neck with her sandpaper tongue and kneading her front paws into my shoulder. If I stop stroking her, she will give me a small nip as if to tell me to pay attention, then settle back into my lap and look at me with her green eyes wide open. I can sense her contentment and feel her heartbeat and as I cradle her small, warm, furry body, I wonder if she knows how much I love her and how glad I am to have her. Her body tenses as I move to put her down and she reaches for my shoulders with both front paws and we rub noses and I give her a last minute hug. It seems that I turned away for an instant and ten years passed.