Moving on.

So, I came home the other night to learn from the other cats in the house that Mike and Judy had packed their suitcases and left in kind of a big hurry. Mike had been on the telephone a lot. Teri showed up the next day and fed us and played  with us for a while. She is very nice, and typically comes over when Mike and Judy go away. She came by every day while they were gone. They’re back home again now, and things seem to be getting back to normal. One of the problems with being a cat is that people don’t sit down and explain to you everything that’s going on. On the one hand, we really don’t care, but on the other hand I must confess that I am particularly nosy. But just hearing all the conversation, I have come to the conclusion that Mike’s mother had died, and they went someplace very cold to conduct whatever transactions were associated with her loss. Mike and Judy don’t seem to be too upset about his mother’s passing. I know he will miss her, but she hadn’t been herself for a number of years, and I think he had already done most of his grieving. She had advanced Alzheimer’s disease. Mike said he was happy for his mother and sad  for himself. Death after all, is part of life, and the journey goes on. Exactly where it leads is something of a mystery. Cats believe that God is good and we trust that something good awaits us on the next leg of our journey. I’ve heard Mike say that some people’s cardiovascular system outlasts their nervous system, an unfortunate circumstance. I have seen domesticated cats go through this to some degree. This never happens with feral cats. They typically don’t live long enough. And if they do live unusually long, as soon as they are mentally off their game  just a little bit they fall prey to predators or cars. People tend to be much more attached to their parents and ancestors then cats are. Cats typically don’t even know who their father was. My grandfather, Black Jack, said in his autobiography that this is probably part of the energy that drives cats to pursue their spiritual journey, leading them to seek the Father of us all.

So, some time before Mike and Judy left for a few days I had walked past David’s house. It was a little after dark, and I noticed that his front door was slightly ajar. Being nosy, as already mentioned above, I decided to go in and check around. I had mentioned my visits to David in my previous post, The Cat’s Meow, published on August 19, 2017. David lives alone and he doesn’t get much company. Mike and I would stop by, but I don’t remember seeing anybody else visiting him. I hadn’t thought that much about it, but I had noticed that David had been getting weaker and losing weight for some time. Anyway, I  went into the house and started nosing around. His house was in considerable disarray, not that that bothered me any; but what did bother me was the smell of sickness. I found David lying on the floor in his bedroom. He appeared to have been trying to get to the bathroom and had fallen down. He had soiled himself, and was too weak to get up. He was kind of out of it but I heard him say my name.  I decided I better get some help for him, so I tore out of the house and headed straight for our house several blocks away. It was about the time in the evening that Mike would be starting to get ready for bed. I found him sitting in the family room finishing his repulsive snack of dry granola and washing it down with Diet Coke. Now, if I was a dog, I could have done the Lassie bit and barked incessantly and made those motions with my head and eyes indicating that he was supposed to follow me. Fortunately,  I am not a dog, but it would have been convenient to be able to engage in  dog behaviors. I couldn’t think of anything else to do but bite his trouser leg and pull at it. So, of course, he acted annoyed and swatted me away; but I persisted. Finally Judy, who was watching this performance, told him that I obviously was trying to get his attention. Duh! She suggested that I go see what he wants me to do. So he got up and I ran to the front door and out the cat door. I waited for a few minutes but he was too dull to understand my meaning. So I popped back into the house looked up at him with my big green eyes, and went back out again. After about 3 cycles of this behavior  he opened the front door and stepped outside. I gave him another tug on his pant leg and took off down the street checking back from time to time to make sure he was following me. I must say he took his time. Finally, we got to David’s house. I went in and he followed  me. Right away he called 911 and not long after that there was a car outside with flashing lights, and a man and woman came into the house. After checking David over for a few minutes and talking to Mike they said that they would have to take him to the hospital. They couldn’t get their gurney around the corner into his bedroom so they took the sheets off of his bed and made a sling for him and carried him out like that. Mike called Judy and headed back home a lot faster than he had been following me. He got in his car, I guess to go to the hospital to see about David. As I mentioned a minute ago, people don’t take the trouble to tell cats anything, but I can tell you the David never came home, and I gather from what Mike and Judy said to each other that the hospital had sent him to some place to die. More than that I can’t say. So far nobody else has moved into his house but I suppose that will happen fairly soon. I hope they have a cat or two. But we don’t need any more dogs in Happy Meadows.

While I’m on the subject of people dying, let me share an absurdity with you. Mike’s late wife Gena, Michelle’s mother, has been gone for 25 1/2 years. That’s not the absurd part. The absurd part is that she still gets mail. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia is trying to save her $213 a year for her Medicare supplemental insurance coverage that’s guaranteed for her lifetime. Another company has been trying to get her to buy life insurance. She has been approved for a credit card; all she need do is fill out the application and send it in. I wonder where these major companies get their mailing lists. Obviously, there is a record of people’s birth and when they turn 65 that triggers an avalanche of Medicare related mail. Oh, and I should mention that several companies want to sell Gena a hearing aid. I suspect that wherever she is, she hears more than people realize and that she’s getting a good chuckle about this.  And speaking of hearing aids, Mike is in the market for one now. He doesn’t hear that well any more, and the hissing in his ears is starting to get on his last nerve. Stay tuned.

That’s all the news now from Happy Meadows. I hope you were able to be with your families on Thanksgiving, and that you enjoy the holiday season.