lazarus

So she didn’t die. The morning after the day of death-scare, she woke up and simply decided she was going to live. It’s still a mystery to us; but we watched her develop a hearty appetite for the super-nutrient pet vitamin we had bought, get back to her usual self, and return to all those normal kitty habits that I never thought I’d be happy to hear/see:
incessant meowing at the start of certain kitchen preparations: she has an uncanny ability to smell even frozen-solid meat
sharpening her claws on my yoga mat, or on any surface that she deems worthy of her scratching time (i.e. those that will show clear and lasting evidence that her claws were there)
making sure we do not forget how to get to her litter box, by leaving trails of litter from any given room in the home
showing her affection for the broom by following me when I sweep and running to splay her body over it at each stroke.
I had to throw away the lovely cross I had painstakingly made for her. Ok, so maybe it was neither lovely nor painstakingly made: but it did feel a bit odd to just toss a grave marker with her name on it.
We also had to resume project find-a-new-owner in full force—even more urgent now that a week had passed in which we had grown lax in the search. Then, suddenly, a photo sent by a friend to her friend led to a phone call the next night, which led to a pickup the next day. Yes, Lily has a new home: quite a perfect one, in fact, for an older cat used to having plenty of adult attention. Her new owners are a young couple who have not been married for long and who, we suspect, will find Lily to be the perfect first “child.”
A part of me wants to wonder about the meaning of all this: why the roller coaster of emotions and reactions? But the more practical part realizes that it is simply time now to move on with the business of moving. A library remains to be inventoried this week; books remain to be catalogued; our home remains to be packed up and cleared out . . . yes, on to the business of life. But, hopefully, with a remnant of the peace that comes from knowing that someone’s got my back. Someone’s on my side :-)