Saturday, April 11, 2015

My husband is not a cat

Ok.  I know for a fact that my dead husband has not come back to me as a cat.  I just want to get that out of the way right up front.  No need to start calling the men in white coats just yet.  

But...     
sometimes, at night...      
when I am alone...

I start to think strange thoughts.  They go like this.  "Hey, I am sad and this cat seems to know when I am the most sad and immediately runs up to comfort me.  Maybe Daniel is here trying to make me feel better."  Of course, my brain knows that Daniel has not borrowed the cat's body to come up and purr me to sleep.  Definitely not.  

But the cat does seem to be somehow possessed to act very differently than her norm.  I should explain a bit more for this to make sense.

Daniel and I got Seffy, our cat, when she was a kitten 10 years ago.  Since then, we have seen her roughly 30 times.  Months would go by where the only way we knew she was still around was because her food bowl needed to be refilled or the liter box changed.  I do not exaggerate when I say that the only real proof of her existence was the fluffy grey puffs of hair that floated its way into the dust pan on cleaning days. 

Yet, since the moment I returned home from the emergency room on the night Daniel left us, she has been very attentive. And, when I am feel most like I am going mad, there she is... rubbing against my arm and rumbling softly.  How does she know?

This has been going on for months now.  Today I realized something.  I was sitting alone thinking of him and she ran right up to me.  "This is nuts," I thought.  Then it hit me.  

I'd sighed his name.  

"Oh Daniel," I whispered.  And... in an empty house these are the only words that have been spoken in hours.  So, this cat is not being enthralled by my husband to comfort me in his absence.  But instead, these periodic utterances during times when I am most lost have broken the long silence and called her to me.

I love you Daniel.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing that Amy. I have a similar experience with my son's little dog. She didn't give two sniffs about me when my son was alive. Now she's underfoot every time I make a noise. It helps to know I'm not crazy, or at least not crazy alone. :-)

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  2. Hi Cynthia. Thank you so much for your comments.

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