Cats

These days, these lazy late-summer days, Ash and Sammy are practically siamese twins. Looking at the two ash-gray cats as they lie down together beside the house, you cannot easily tell where one ends and the other begins.

I wish I could be all 'Aww!' about it, watching my cats enjoying their feline felicity, safe and well-fed and comfortable in life, like the way a parent watches his children playing happily in the park.

But I cannot help feeling some bitterness over this propensity of theirs, the way they fill up their own universe, leaving little room for anyone else, for in it I can feel Coco's loneliness and understand why she felt moved to look farther afield for fulfillment, despite all the love that I felt for her, and only to get hurt worse, much worse.

We are only a few weeks short of a full year since I lost her, and it still hurts.