Of course, I miss the little furball and mourn his passing, but I also note that my other cat, Eliot, has seemed to thrive in his absence. They both got along well and neither one seemed to bully or dominate the other, but Eliot lost a lot of weight while Izzy was growing obese. Eliot also started losing a lot of fur and developed a bad case of gingivitis, and began to resemble Bill the Cat from the old Bloom County comic strip. I took him to the vet, who told me there was no big problem with his health other than old age, but I had long assumed that Eliot would pass on before Izzy. It was therefore doubly surprising when Izzy died two months ago while Eliot lived on.
But since Izzy passed, Eliot has recovered a lot of the weight he had lost. He's not getting fat like Izzy was, but he no longer looks as alarmingly gaunt as he had prior to Izzy's demise. And his fur loss is abating and his coat is coming back. There have been no new medications or changes in diet to account for Eliot's recovery, and the only thing different is the absence of Izzy.
Alert readers may recall that Izzy died in his sleep on that December afternoon. He settled on my bed for an afternoon nap and never work up. To he honest, I actually kind of liked the peace and solitude I enjoyed that afternoon - it was nice not having cats compete for my affection for a few hours - but I became concerned when Izzy failed to show up at dinnertime. I went to look for him and found him where I had last seen him, curled up on my bed, but he no longer was in the body laying on top of the blankets.
Since Izzy passed, I become nervous anytime I don't see Eliot in more than an hour or two. Ever since Izzy's death, I'm more affectionate to Eliot and he, in turn, follows me around the house more closely than he had in the past. I can't tell if his proximity is because of my increased affection or because of loneliness after losing his friend, but he's rarely very far from me. He's laying behind me on the futon right now as I'm writing this.
Late yesterday afternoon, he curled up on my bed - as is his custom - for a nap. Naturally, every time he does this, I check on him frequently to make sure he doesn't go all Izzy on me and pass on. So far, so good. But yesterday, the Super Bowl started at 6:30 while Eliot was still napping, and I was able to enjoy the first half of the game without a cat constantly trying to curl up on my lap or otherwise trying to compete for my attention.
By halftime, though, I got worried. He slept right through his usual 7:00 pm feeding and still hadn't shown up some two hours later. This was way to close to Izzy's behavior on that fateful day for me to ignore. While I'm normally fidgety and restless while watching sports on t.v. and don't want a cat trying to curl on my lap and pin me down to the sofa, I nevertheless went and got Eliot, still alive, from my bed and took him back with me to the den for the second half of the Super Bowl.
He enjoyed the attention and affection, of course, but seemed noncommittal about curling on my lap. He'd repeatedly jump off, walk in circles around the room for a minute or two, and then jump back on. It was as though he liked the lap and the affection, but felt there was something else he should be doing.
I went to bed after the game. Normally, Eliot joins me on the bed sometime after I settle in, sometimes jumping up and waking me just after I fell asleep. Last night, I woke up from disturbing dreams to find Eliot hadn't joined me by 4:00 a.m. I laid there a while trying to convince myself Eliot wasn't dead, but I kept thinking about his long nap through dinner, his disinterest in cuddling with me during the second half, and his highly unusual absence from the foot of my bed. Animals often crawl off to be alone when they know they're dying, and it felt like Eliot was doing just that. I couldn't sleep, so I got up to check on him, and found him curled up on the sofa where I had been sitting hours earlier watching the Big Game. As I turned on the light, he lifted his head and offered a weak "meow" in greeting (he's a very verbal cat). Okay, he's alive, I was relieved to conclude, and went back to bed, but Eliot didn't follow as I expected.
I again had disturbing dreams when I fell back asleep, ruminating as I was about Eliot's death. I dreamed I was a young child playing in the waves at the beach with a dog, who kept disappearing underwater when the waves broke over us. The wave would recede but my dog wouldn't reappear until I groped around beneath the water's surface and pulled him back up. And then another wave would come, and the process would repeat.
About 7:30 this morning, Eliot jumped up and finally joined me on the bed. He was fine and healthy in all of his new, post-Izzy heartiness, and I hugged him and petted him for a long time before getting up. I've been watching him this morning and he appears perfectly fine, and I can only ascribe his distant behavior last night to the infamous fickleness and capriciousness of cats. Or to my own paranoia and feelings of guilt over Izzy.
Then I look at the Universal Solar Calendar and realize that today is appropriately Day of the Cat.
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