GONE GIRL CAT

Our sweet boy-cat left us this spring. Now our feisty girl-cat is gone, too. We are still a little shocked at how quickly we lost them. He was nearing twenty -- we don't know his age for sure -- and she was just seventeen.

We'd had the boy a few months when a relative called. A papa cat, mama cat, and four kittens had turned up on his doorstep. The papa delivered his family and left. The relative took the mama cat and a neighbor took the kittens. Two of them found homes. Would we take one of the two that were left?

We went to look at them. The neighbor already had five or six adult cats -- she was brave to take on the four kittens! -- and they were all in the living room, looking on with bemusement as one of the kittens ran around playing with a toy. If another cat tried to take it away, she grabbed it back. And they let her. That little black and white ball of fur was clearly the boss. She cowed them all, including her brother.

My guy pointed to her. "That one. She's got personality."

And that she did. When we got her home, she assumed the role of queen of the house and never relinquished it. Our darling boy-cat wasn't sure what to make of her but was too much of a gentleman to object. He let her do as she pleased except when it came to food. He had been a street cat, and he took umbrage at anyone interfering with his meals.

So for all but a couple of months of her seventeen years, she lived with us and her adopted brother. When he left us, she must have been bewildered. I don't think she remembered life without him. She went downhill, had to be put on steroids. That helped, bringing back her appetite and giving her some energy. I thought the worst was past.

Then last week, she threw up, curled up into a ball, and refused to eat. Even her favorite tuna juice got nothing more than a desultory sniff. She started hiding under the computer table or in the closet without moving for hours, and I knew it was time.

I do think she was pining for her brother.

Now the house is quiet and we have no need to watch for a warm furball or make room for a little form to lie beside my guy while we watch TV. We are thankful for all the good years we enjoyed them, but oh, we are missing both of them dreadfully!

The queen:

Our gentleman:

CATS

I've been a little distraught. My boy cat is old. Like about twenty.

The last couple of years he's been blind and deaf, but he was able to find his food dish and his litter box and his bed. Then he began having some mental problems. Meowing in the middle of the night. Going around in circles. Wanting to eat every couple of hours.

But he was still in pretty good health so we catered to him. Feeding him three or four times a day, putting him in his bed when he meowed, moving him to a familiar place when he got lost.

We were making it fine until the last couple of weeks. Now he's looking tired and withdrawn. And he's making hacking noises that sound like whooping cough. When I pick him up, he's uncomfortable. He's always been a gentleman and would never scratch me, but I think he's beginning to be in some pain.

I can't see him suffer, but it sure is hard to let him go.

Here he's asleep in his little bed. I moved it into my bathroom because he likes it in there. The girl cat usually sleeps with him, but lately she's deserted him. I'm wondering if she knows he's feeling bad and is making it easier for him.

Pets are like children. Easy to love and hard to lose.

TRAVELS

Made it up to this side of Atlanta for my aunt's funeral and back. Listened to Christmas music all the way up so it wasn't till we got there that we heard about the shootings in Connecticut. It's still hard to take in, how one person can deliberately do so much damage to others' lives.

The trip up and back was long and fast, but we got to visit with family, some of whom we hadn't seen in years. The sad occasion let us reconnect so seems the old saying is true: everything does happen for a reason.

Our cats don't sulk, fortunately. They were happy to see us back and showed it.

Evidently they thought we'd abandoned them. Not sure how they managed it, but halfway up the interstate, our babysitter called, wanting to know if she'd forgotten she was supposed to take care of the cats. No, I told her, we were going up and coming right back so they'd be fine. She had the flu and sounded like it, but she was determined to check on the babies if she needed to. I assured her they were fine and told her to go back to bed. Not many babysitters are so conscientious!

But now I'm wondering how the cats got word to her of their supposed abandonment. I don't think they know how to  punch buttons on the phone. Although we do have the babysitter's number on fast dial...

The girl cat, jumping up from her nap to greet us on our return.

The boy cat, rushing to his food dish on our return.

ANOTHER FUNERAL

Well, another beloved relative died this past week, one day before her 98th birthday. Aunt Sara was soft-spoken, kind, and the kind of woman who's easy to be around. We're leaving tomorrow, going up to Atlanta for her funeral where she'll be laid beside her daughter who died way too young.

This has been a really bad year for deaths of people close to us. I hope next year will be better. Otherwise, people may start lopping us off the friends list!

And of course, the cats have spotted the suitcases and are beginning to show signs of displeasure. They'll be expecting extra wet food to make up for our absence. We'll have to leave the heat turned up for them, too, because they hate cold, and the temperature today didn't break fifty. A big change from the seventies we were enjoying two days ago.

But it always happens when we have to travel. At least snow isn't predicted where we're heading.

Now I'll finish packing. If I can get this clingy cat off my foot...

SWIM TRAGEDY

Our sandbars here are enticing, but they're dangerous. The quickly rising sea means currents run so hard between them and the shore that people can be swept away. That's what happened this past weekend.

A thirty-year-old army sergeant and his children were on the sandbar as the tide began to come in. They floundered in the suddenly-deep water between the beach and sandbar, but bystanders pulled the children to safety. Unfortunately, a wave knocked the father down before rescuers could get to him. They did recover his body last night when fisherman at the pier saw the current carrying it past. Not much consolation, but it does mean some closure for the family.

Drownings like this happen a lot down here. It seems the currents claim someone every few years. The lifeguards leave at four; this drowning happened shortly after. There are also signs cautioning people about the currents, but I'm not sure they're prominent or explicit enough. People don't understand that going onto the sandbars during the rising tide means they can be stranded with a rushing stream of water between them and the shore.

Thinking of the widow and her children breaks your heart.

GRANNY REMEMBERED

Granny died last week at 92. She was buried last Sunday.


She was a woman who did pretty much as she pleased, and did it without running over other people. She was too laid back to let things bother her but was quick to sympathize with others. She never said anything really bad about anyone. In fact, she could usually find something good in everybody.

She was straightforward. She once said she told everything she knew. But one time she didn't. Her and Granddad's elopement wasn't a spur of the moment thing. They'd planned it. Carefully. They rented a house and bought furniture, told her mother Granddad was taking her to visit a relative, got married, and spent their wedding night at the house of some friends before coming came back to face the music. Granny wore a navy dress with a sailor collar and a red tie. She took the tie off because red's bad luck for brides. But that didn't keep her and Granddad from getting dunked in Talking Rock Creek (a custom of those times for newlyweds).

She liked to cook and was good at it. One of the few times she showed her temper was a few years after they married when Granddad criticized her banana pudding. He said it looked kind of runny. She threw a Coke bottle at him. He dodged, but the dent in the wall stayed there for years. Must have made an impression 'cause I sure never heard him say anything about her cooking.

And she flexed her muscles when Granddad and his youngest son went off with cash in hand to buy a new car. Granny never helped choose their cars because she never wanted to. But she was tight with money. And when Granddad came home with the car and the cash because the salesman had convinced him to use the dealership's low interest offer... Well. Granny hit the roof. She sent Granddad right back to pay off the debt, saying any fool knows it's cheaper not to pay interest. And as shrewd as she was, she probably figured the cash would get spent on something else.

She was independent. After Granddad died, she kept living alone. No matter how her kids urged her, she never considered moving close to any of them. She didn't want to be a burden on anybody.

She wasn't afraid of anything. At a Boy Scout gathering, one of the boys came up and tried to scare her by handing her a snake. She took it, looked at it, looked at the boy, and asked, "What do you want me to do with it?" Then handed it back. The whole group was in awe.

Until Granddad retired, she'd lived all her life in the foothills of Georgia. Then they bought a small house in Florida where they went every winter. He's been gone over twenty years but, even though she couldn't drive, Granny kept going back and forth. One of her kids would carry her to Florida in October and bring her back to north Georgia in May. That's what she and Granddad had done and by golly, she'd keep doing it!

In 2008, her Florida house got broken into while she was sleeping. She was deaf and didn't hear the racket as they chopped at a door in the garage, trying to get into the house. She found it the next morning, the frame chipped away and one deadbolt all that saved the house from being burglarized. Her kids and friends were afraid for her and wanted her to stay in Georgia. But Granny went back down the next November anyway. For the last time, it turned out.

In January of 2009, she had a heart attack. She survived, but her last two years were spent in a nursing home in north Georgia. Everyone knew she wouldn't get better, but her death still hurt.

She loved to quilt. Her mother helped her make her first quilt - a string quilt she called it - when she was nine years old. On her coffin, instead of the usual spray of flowers, her daughter laid a cathedral window quilt, one of the last ones Granny made. Granny would have loved it.

We miss her.

DEATH OF A YOUNG MAN

It's true. Someone told me but I didn't really believe it until I saw the death notice today.

A friend's son - her youngest, her baby - died. He was only 27. I remember when I first met him. He was a sweet little boy you couldn't help smiling at.

Children grow up and sometimes lose their way. Despite all the efforts of his mother and the others who loved him, he did. Maybe he was close to finding his path again but now we'll never know.

It's a hard world out there today. If you have children, realize that at any point they can be taken away without warning. So protect them as best you can and forgive them when they don't behave the way you want them to. And love them always.

In the end, when it's all said and done, that love is all that matters. And when grief is overwhelming, that love is all we have to cling to.