Still

It is early summer, well before the rains. Today the wind has dropped and it is hot and still and humid.

Despite the heat my precious little black cat is stretched across my lap, her breathy purr faint in the silence. I reflect how much I have come to love this fluffy little cat. She was a gift just under a year ago from Small. His way of easing me into his last year at high school and preparation for his departure to University in January next year. He said that he had read in the internet that a new pet could help ease a mothers feeling of "empty nest" and is typical of his thoughtfulness.

My iPad wobbles and typing one handed is frustratingly slow, yet I am disinclined to move her, and she purrs on, content. Memory and love swirl. Her insistence on climbing on to my shoulder to be fed when she was small and had not been properly weaned. A persistence that continued so that she snuggles there each morning as I say my prayers. Her love of food and crafty raiding of the other cats food and milk. Her dislike of the cold, resulting in her curling into the crook of my legs on a cold winters night. Her lightening fast race up the passage to bounce whoever she found in the kitchen, - cat, dog or human, guest or visitor. Only for her to leap away laughing.

On Wednesday the vet told me the the lumps I felt under her skin were a malignant lymphoma.

And disbelief wars with anger.

I choose stillness and quiet to let the violent emotions bleed out into.

And I ask myself........

How will I pray without her?