The time has finally come for me to sit down and write about my dearest cat, Mooch. (All of my cats are my dearests, by the way, but, as you can see from the pictures, he was my dearest dearest.)
Mooch was riddled with several diseases, the last and most lethal of which was cancer, and the time finally came to end them for him.
So many people believe that animals, even dogs and cats, are incapable of knowing and showing love the way human beings do. The pictures above certainly show how wrong they are. And in fact, the inability to know and show love is fast disappearing from the human species.
Mooch and I slept nose-to-nose every night, and I will miss him 
terribly for every remaining night of my life.
The rest of my cats have continued to search for him, especially Sylvie. I have a fairly roomy U-shaped house with a large screened-in porch which they can enter from either side at will in order to birdwatch, so they are gradually returning to their favorite pastime of birdwatching. But FOUR is a very hard number for me to cope with. When I check on them before going to bed each night, I continue to find myself searching for the FIFTH.
As for cats’ ability to feel and express love, it is often hard to catch the most revealing shots by camera. Last year, I was lying on my bed doing exercises with my feet on the bed and my knees raised. My therapist took successive shots of Mooch coming to the rescue, but she was unable to catch the best—when he laid his arm across my ribs and DARED her with his eyes to continue with the exercise of bending my knees from side to side, which was, in the eyes of my cat, abnormal, and possibly harmful, to me.
Animals, especially those who are loved, and those who are rescued and loved, is ever-lasting from both sides. A mother loves her child from birth, but pets are loved until their deaths if they are lucky. The birth of a child is generally happy, but the death of a loved pet is always heart-wrenching. So far, I have fourteen little caskets waiting to be buried with me. I am just sorry that I did not bring those from 30 years of living in the Bay Area down here with me. And, as painful as it will be to me, I hope I will outlast those remaining, because I would not want them to undergo the grief which I have felt for those who are gone.
