Thank God for my cats

 

These are my boys. Dexter and Pixel. During Roz's final days and after her death they kept me going. Pixel would always greet me when I got home with his usual "Where the f**k have you been!?" yells. The longer I'd been away the more indignant the complaints. Dexter would soon follow behind with his little excited trills.

With them there, my house was never truly empty. It was still a home. Still a place of warmth and love even if it wasn't the wonderful joyful place it had been before.

Roz and I have always had cats. When Roz and I first met she was living with her mother having not long returned from a couple of years in the United States. Even then she had a two year old half persian/half siamese cat called Mort. When we finally bought a house and could have pets Mort came with us. He was soon joined by a feisty little tortoise shell called Fraidy (very poorly named as we soon came to find out!). 

Being in the house for 14 years meant we cycled through a few cats. Mort and Fraidy passed away of natural causes and we brought Sprite, Gizmo and Dexter into our lives.

Gizmo and Roz bonded very closely. The photo below was taken when Roz was going through her chemo rounds. This was a position I often found the two of them in. When I wasn't around Roz would confide her fears to Gizmo and her presence was a great comfort.

When Gizmo was run over in November 2018 Roz was absolutely devastated. Her death occurred two days after we were informed that the first cycle of chemo hadn't worked and that Roz's tumours had actually grown and spread. We adopted Dexter a few weeks afterwards and below you can see Roz, Sprite, Dexter and Pixel all asleep on our sofa. They have always been a presence in our lives and we would often comment about how empty our home would be without them.

Right till the end the cats gave Roz comfort and pleasure and have given me a reason to keep going when I felt absolutely no other reason to do so. Roz commented that she knew I wouldn't do anything stupid after she died because I would always be there to look after the cats.

Since she passed away nearly two years ago, curling up in bed with them has taken away the sense of utter isolation and loneliness. They are my link back to Roz. We never had children so these two are the remaining members of our family. 

My cats have given me great joy, comfort, entertainment, laughter and have soothed my soul on so may occasions I can't count.

I now live in a new home with my 2.0 and, between us, we have five cats ranging from 1 to 18. This results in territorial squabbles, lots of demand for attention, lap sitting, cuddles and playtime, permanent cat hair on clothes and belongings and I wouldn't have it any other way.

As I said, thank God for cats.