Love letter to my cat

from a grieving mother

Pumpkin ❤️

Photo: Mumma Jo feeds her new baby 12 years ago

Pumpy, hello we're home darling.

Pumpy?

Silence

Thuddddddd

Heart

Drops

on Floor

Breaking

Shattering

How can a cat take up that much space?

That our home is so full now

of silence.

How can it all be so still

and so quiet?

You were Always There

Always Here

But are no longer anyWhere,

which requires much deep inner heart contemplation to assure myself that surely she can't just be gone. Surely she lives here somewhere.

Because wasn't it just yesterday your little ear with it's tuft of hair, your innocent (deceptively) white paw were just over there, your warm body sleeping snuggled and swaddled in that red down sleeping bag. Aren't you still there?

Somewhere?

You are Everywhere

You are in our hearts, our souls, the sky, the grass, the birds who do seem to be chirping more since your watchful eye has departed this world. Perhaps you have turned into a bird in your next life time. Maybe you are the little red headed goldfinch who came and tapped at my kitchen window the other day to have a good old chat with me. Never before have I had such a visitor. Oh wouldn't that be funny Pumpy. Wouldn't that be ironic. But perhaps I am just losing my mind. Is this what happens?

Photo. Always supportive of us. Here she is her big brother Harry’s study companion.

How can it all be so still

and so quiet?

Our inner owwwww a distorted mirror of your outer meowwwww.

Pumpy I miss you we miss you.

We had the same routine and rituals by the end.

You joined me for my twice daily toothbrushing sessions, jumping up on the bench and requesting a left hand neck rub as my right hand went about the business of brushing. You knew I was trapped there for the two minute electric toothbrush timer. You knew that my spare hand had to do something and if I ever dared to pause you would raise your little "innocent" white paw to the air, tap tap tap, "back to me back to me."

I miss you Pumpy when I'm doing my early morning downward dogs of which you created an entirely unique asana called the "upward cat" with a side helping of furry head butts. A pose that was interchangeable by you turning in the other direction to create asana number two: "cat furry butt rubbed in human head."
I am sure it was a compliment.

We miss you sitting at the kitchen bench up on a barstool in the middle of your brother and sister, Harry and Eva. You would sit there quite content, not asking for food at the human eating place, but simply very happy to be involved in the family conversation, the family vibe. To be a part of it all. Oh Pumpy. Breaking breaking heart.

I even miss you swiping my ankles as I try and make the daring and dangerous trip from clothesline to house. Leaping at me like the savannah lion you think you are. I had to carry the garden spade close to my legs each time for cover and protection.

Photo: Protecting her older sister Eva.

I miss watching you sit on your little stool out there. The one you adopted like Goldilocks because it was Just Right for your furry body to sit upon. Just right for your self imposed daily 10am morning meditation session. Time to get up now you would say as you stretched your way out of your elaborate bed set up to take in the day's offerings. Wow look, ant crawls along concrete! You were Cat-ivated for hours. What a lesson animals are in being present. In appreciating nature. You are/were a work of art right there as your little nose sniffed the breeze, your eyes closed, your head slightly raised to catch
The Zest of Life.

“I have lived with several Zen masters—all of them cats.”

Eckhart Tolle

Pumpy I miss you most on rainy days. Your quiet company as we work away in the cosiness of Home. Thank you for being there.

It wasn't even my intention to "own" a cat. "Own" being a loose term given we all know a cat will pretend she is not owned but in fact the owner herself of these silly human creatures. The queen of the castle.

Cats who seem, perhaps, to hold less importance in the animal pet hierarchy than dogs. I've loved and lost a dog and I think I was offered a week of bereavement leave. No one offers that for cats.

Yet somehow I have become a cat owner, and in fact if we are into labels as many are, I am (was) a

"Woman in her 50's living on own with cat."

Well how wonderful is that.

Yay for cats, yay for women, and yay for the 50's!

Oh Pumpy how we love you, you little ankle swiper head butt-er.

You Furry warm presence.

Photo: Family time, winter 2024.

Pumpkin

You were a free spirit from the start.

Your genes infused with the Wilds of the Cardrona Valley

where your grandmother was plucked scrawny and fierce and

Homed and Loved

She and her kittens and grandkittens,

by a series of dark haired wild and loving Women.

Dark and Wild and Loving.

Your mother, Pumpy, run over by a car 2 days after giving birth to an ambush of 9 kittens.
Before another mother, Me, stepped in, taking two to start, your brother also Pumpy, before being required by the house rental agency to give one back.

I fed you Pumpkin, very messily, with a syringe full of a special milk blend, as I held you close, that feeling of being a mother right there, instinctual, heart, expanding. We even taught you how to poo and wee, by rubbing your anal glands. Yep. They told me to. I used protection. We taught you well.

You repaid us Pumpy by giving wonderous displays of furry acrobatic cleaning of your privates, in full view. If you saw me catch a slightly horrified glance of you mid clean, you would suddenly stop and pretend you were just licking your paw.

Cats are clever like that.

“How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?”

Carson McCullers

You are still here Pumpy. Always.

With so much love and appreciation from

Jo Harry and Eva and all of those who have bravely patted you, given you neck rubs, and been swiped clawed headbutted and loved by you. ❤️❤️❤️