Let me add my voice to this chorus. Arnie will always be celebrated here as a character with a unique personality. Having a cat around is like having a favourite jigsaw puzzle that you love even though you can’t find the right pieces to complete it. Something about a cat will always be enigmatic. I think that’s why when we love a cat we love it totally – because it’s always as though we’re expecting to find out more, but we never will.

People may suggest to us that we ought to get things into proportions – “It’s only a pet.” Loving a creature with a life span shorter than ours, however, will never fail to remind us of mortality. When we lose something – a live thing, a pet as much as a person – we actually lose something of ourselves. The part of us that related to that live friend has been excised from us. It is bewildering and disorienting. We mourn the hole inside us. Coping is difficult, so what I always say to bereaved friends is this…

It is as though he has stepped outside for a while.

When someone you love steps outside, they don’t fade from your thoughts, your love for them doesn’t suddenly disappear because they aren’t in the room at the moment.

If that seems a facile suggestion, don’t worry. The other thing I always say is that whatever you’re feeling at the moment is totally human, totally understandable, totally allowable. Hug each other. Hug Bonnie – Bonnie will still maintain her air of total bewilderment at the world, she’ll be her usual, dependable self, half Lab half Giraffe – and will be the foil to your family tragedy.

End of ramble. Much love,

M
xx

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