Life with a diabetic cat is like seeing your best friend living in pain, until you have the Neosporin or Tylenol to squelch it.

Our cat, Kitti, is 6 years old.  He lives with two 1-year-old cats, Jack & Reluctance.  Kitti never was very hospitable to them, as we often began the evening or morning with very loud warning calls from one or the others.  Now that he’s been diagnosed, he seems heavily sedated— both to them and to us.  He sits at the doorway of their room, rather than wandering in for their food or water.  I feel emotionally charged for him to be the same vibrant cat he was, but he must adjust and he must stabilize before we may see that side of him.

I wander through thought the same way he wanders through his day— pacing back through the same paths he’s been, only skirting the same footprints.  He lays on our bed, looking at us through those ears and closed eyelids— he’s content now, not readying himself for an attack or a pre-emptive gesture of dominance.

Maybe this is from us leaving for vacation for a week, wherein Candi’s Mom helped feed and maintain the three of them.  Maybe, through that week, he saw how invaluable we are to him— just as invaluable as he is to us.  He makes our days, when we arrive home and the windowsill is occupied by a paw-walker waiting for our touch and presence.  He is our home, a remnant of whom we carry inside of us on our journies to work, and a piece of whom we carry on our clothing.