I’m a dog person. Twister was Andy’s cat and we inherited her for 15 of her 17 years. Putting her to sleep was as devastating as it always is, but it is the aftermath when I am noticing the differences between losing and missing a dog and losing and missing a cat. A dog is so obvious and in some ways easier – you are forced to accept that he is gone because he is not there to greet you with joyful jumping around, or come running when you put your shoes on, expecting a walk. The acceptance is fast and brutal.

This is different, slower and in some ways more difficult. Twister was not a lap cat and except for dinner time or middle of the night howling for who knew what reason, she was quiet. She’d slink into the room – Carl Sandburg characterized it so accurately when describing fog: “The fog comes on little cat feet. It sits looking over the harbor and city on silent haunches and then moves on”. Sometimes I’d see her walk in, sometimes I wouldn’t. Sometimes she’d come sit in the basket next to my chair, sometimes she wouldn’t. Sometimes she’d be upstairs all evening, sometimes she’d hang with us. Twister was just a reluctant companion cat, requiring only that we feed her and pet her at her bidding.

Now if there is a change in shadow and light in the room from a tree branch outside, my eyes look over expecting to see her and of course she is not there. A creaking house noise quickly disappoints me as I realize it isn’t her coming to pay a visit.  It is dinner time now and there are no little cat feet, no meowing, no hovering. I count the blessing when I walk past the litter box and it is is gone, too. I count the blessing when we plan future travel and plans can change them on a dime without worrying about “arrangements”. We had a mature relationship – live and let live, and eventually live and let die, and of course a cat relationship is so different from a dog relationship, but sometimes I just feel like a little kid and I miss her and wish that she, like all my pets that came before, never had to go at all.