We Have a Cat

The fellow in the picture is my mom’s cat, Morris. He doesn’t look quite sure of himself yet (at least not for him), as this was taken about an hour or so after he came to live on our side of the house. That was a tough day, when we had to have hospice care brought in for Mom, the hospital bed and a flurry of medical people and services. A lot of you know what I mean. Necessary. Complicated. Inevitable. She passed away six days later.

Apparently, Morris has gone through this before. Mom decided to get a cat about seven years ago. She spotted a pale ginger tabby perched alone on a shelf in a room full of cats at the shelter. She asked about him and the volunteer said, “Oh, that’s Morris.” He had belonged to an elderly person who passed away and no one could take the cat. And also that the cat did not like dogs. Mom once had a remarkable cat also named Morris (yes, after the ginger cat in the old 9 Lives cat food commercials), so she took this as a sign. Dogs wouldn’t be a problem.

Morris was a shy one at first, but over the course of time he warmed up to Mom, and eventually to some visitors, excepting perhaps my granddaughter when she was a toddler. Then when Mom moved up here with us two and a half years ago, he surprised us all by being immediately comfortable in his new digs, and quite sociable. And very fond of my granddaughter. She’s only been able to wave at him through a window for the past year. I wonder what he’ll do when we don’t have to distance anymore and the whole family is here again?

It’s been a month now without Mom, the caring for her, the focus, the being on call and alert. The grieving and the strangeness of her not being there. The weird double-take when I catch myself going to tell her about some thing or news that she would find interesting, or to ask what she’d like when I’m ordering groceries. I’m not sure what it’s like for a cat, but I swear that Morris, too, looks confused sometimes, if less so as the weeks go by. He already knew me as The One Who Brings Food, and my husband as The One Who Does Litter, for we’d gradually taken on more and more of Mom’s daily chores in the weeks and months prior to his moving in with us. We were already part of his tribe, but he still had to get used to all the new spaces, our comings and goings, and not having The One Who Adopted Him around anymore.

Morris is settling in very well, searching us out for company as well as food, and all the little things that say he’s our cat now. Took him to the vet for a checkup and a manicure, and he passed with flying colors. The ottoman in front of the fireplace is one of his favorite spots, and he even tolerates our feet sharing it with him. He’s getting lots of exercise, especially when he has the “zoomies,” all-out galloping from one end of the house to the other. He can have the run of the basement, too, but he hasn’t worked up enough nerve to do that yet. That I know of.

He perches on a cushion on a side table next to my chair when I work at the dining room table, where we share a great view of the birds and wildlife in the garden. A nearby heat register keeps us both cozy. He naps there for hours. He snores. It’s kind of soothing. After everything that has happened, from the pandemic to Mom’s illness and death, it’s been difficult to write, but I’m gradually getting my routine back. I haven’t had a cat to keep me company when I write since the first Charlotte mystery. But Morris is here now, making work a lot cozier and bearing the heartache a lot easier.