The unconditional love of a furry friend......

Well it's New Year's Eve ..... very late afternoon in fact ...... and I thought it would be nice to have one last memory of Jonesy for 2011. Don't get me wrong, as I will certainly write more in future posts, but this one is important to me. I am not sure why, as it definitely is not an ending, or a finalisation, to my missing Jonesy. Maybe it is because I want his memory to carry on into next year. It probably sounds daft, but our 2012 calender is the type you buy and put your own pictures in, and yes, you have guessed it, the pictures each month will be of Jonesy! Today I feel under the weather, with a sore throat and a cold, and it is a time like this that I feel emotional and could do with a cat to cuddle. The girls are not really attuned to me like Jonesy was, and only appear when they need company. Funny, but he always seem to sense when I was not 100% and needed a cat to mope with. If you are a cat lover you will know the overwhelming sense of comfort you get when you bury your head in their furry softness, and feel the warmth of an unconditional loving purr? It's a mutual love that is different from that with a human, and I was always grateful to receive it! I think I have been building up to being ill, to be honest, because over the last few days I have gone into a reminiscing mode. For example, yesterday when we pulled up the drive after shopping, I really felt Jonesy ought to be racing out of the front door to howl around our legs as we unloaded the bags from the boot. How could we leave him so long......wow what fantastic goodies are in those rustling bags.....I need food 'now'.......and all the palaver that went with him!! It was a very intense feeling of something missing, and no amount of meowing from Ripley or Peanut made it feel the same. I wonder why that is? Gosh, he was such a demanding cat......and yet I miss that part of him most of all.
The girls are pretty old now, 17 in the first part of next year, and they seem to be going pretty do-lally! Either that, or Ripley, in particular, is mimicking how Jonesy used to vocalise his demands? She has always been a 'talky' cat but over the last few weeks she has become extremely loud. Just like Jonesy would have particular meows, which would vary in sound and loudness depending on if anyone was taking any notice of him, Ripley has started to do the same thing. Do cats remember....do cats miss each other....do cats know another cat is not around any more? Who knows? It is funny to hear a cat meow in a plaintive 'is any one there?' way. Jonesy used to bound in from outside and stop short in the kitchen. From wherever I was at the time....in the sitting room, upstairs, wherever.....I could hear this. He would do that meow like he was calling out. If I answered he would do a chirpy meow, and race to find me. The deep satisfied purr of welcome was always a joy to me. My sons and husband tell me he did the same to them. I wonder if cats do that all the time, even when no one is in the house? Only a tape recorder would show that, I suppose, lol? Ripley does it now. She never used to. I do wonder why?
As 2011 comes to a close I want my memory of  Jonesy to be one that brings a smile to my face......the smile that I always had when ever I was privileged to have his company......and indeed that smile is on my face right now!