Waiting

The hours of darkness seem timeless in this season. I have spent so much of my life at these latitudes that darkness doesn't bother me. There is something comforting, sheltering in the long darkness, like being in the womb. I am so accustomed to doing daytime activities without the sun that I don't even think about it. It is like living on a space station, or the moon.

It is with a pang of sadness that I realized that Johnny will never see the sun again. Our comfort-loving kitty-boy went blind at the end of summer and now his final decline has begun. he is locked in a darkness that leads irrevocably to the last endless night.

He has been much in my thoughts of course. There is no question that I love him. He gives so much love back, who could help but love him? But my sadness for his loss has less of the visceral tug that Newt's death caused me. There is part of me that feels it only proper that he and Newt should soon be together--they were such devoted companions in life.

But fond memories of our sweet-natured boy are already flooding my thoughts in advance of his death, a sort of pre-mourning. I know his end will be a release for him. I know he is worn out. He has been such a steady presence in our house for all these years that I haven't yet grasped the emptiness his loss will bring.