Four years ago when we visited our son in Georgia, I bonded with their cat. I had no intention of doing so. It just happened. When I'm a visitor in anybody's home, I am usually the first one up in the morning, rising between 5 and 6 A.M. The one resident at my son's house who greeted me each day when I went to the kitchen to make coffee was Possum the Pussycat. I did a blog entry about her back then.
She was a fine, fat cat. She would meow a "good morning", and I would reply. We had some great conversations, she and I. Although she was seventeen years old at the time, you would never have guessed it. During our visit this year, she and I still had our morning conversations. She's twenty-one years old, hard of hearing, and blind in one eye; but she greeted me politely each day.
She's much thinner, although she seems to feel just fine, thank-you-very-much. I'd find her on her favorite chair when I walked through the living room, and she would soon follow me to the kitchen. After we had our usual conversation, she invariably went down the hall to the door of the bedroom where my son and daughter-in-law sleep.
There she would sit, acting as though she thought if she stared at the door long enough, it would finally swing open.
We humans discussed, several times, the fact that Possum can't possibly have much time left. At one point I made the mistake of mentioning "Possum" and "death" in the same sentence in the presence of Deb's six-year-old granddaughter, Morgan.
That's Morgan, in back, posing for a picture with her little sister. She is eternally happy, unless you mention that somebody is going to die before long. I don't even want to talk about how worried she was at the mention of Possum's mortality. When it was time for her family to go home, she tearfully gave Possum a goodbye hug. Somebody just shoot me. Here's a video I made of Morgan in 2007 that I absolutely love. Back then, she didn't know about death; she only wanted to be able to put her pants on all by herself. It's a shame we have to lose our innocence at such a young age.
I'm happy to introduce to you a true "free spirit". Her name is Morgan. She's two years old. Take notes, because you might some day see her name in lights. By the way, if I were ever to be persuaded to take in some stranger's child, it would be one exactly like this. Only for this kind of child would I give up my freedom.
