This one’s difficult to write. Last week our youngest cat was hit by a car. We don’t know what she was doing on the road. Piper was a homebody. She was allowed out unsupervised, but had never shown any interest in the road. Most likely, she was in our front yard and something scared or chased her out there. She was black, it was night, and our street is a bit of a thoroughfare. Easy math, but it’s not really productive to dwell on reasons. Knowing won’t change it.
The effect on our family has been devastating. The house feels emptier without Piper. She was a homebody, and around much more than either Apollo or Cleo. Very much a lap cat, she was always up for a cuddle and a pat. I still miss her jumping up on the bed when my alarm goes off, making sure that I was going to show her that there was still food left over from the previous night.
P and I are obviously upset, but I think we’re even more saddened by the impact on Cleo. We adopted Piper because we thought that Cleo would appreciate having a companion about her own age. Piper was an unbridled success. Cleo took to having a kitten immediately. They were in separable, almost literally.
We were ecstatic; not since Argent and Xanthos had any two of our cats been such fast friends. Before we started letting Piper out, Cleo would call to her through the cat door, trying to lure her out to play. When Piper was finally allowed out, she showed Piper her favourite spots in the jungle next door (where we couldn’t follow to supervise or rescue). And when Piper went off on her own, Cleo became the concerned big sister and called us to somehow retrieve the kitten.
So, it’s been heartbreaking to think that Cleo is without her kitten, her sister, her best friend. For the first day or two, Cleo seemed ok. Maybe she thought Piper had just gone for a wander, but she’s hanging around the house more than usual. She will wander the house calling for Piper, and even come and tell us to bring her back.
It’s killing me. We’ve had many cats over the years, and lost some to old age, injury and illness. Last year, Argent passed away, and I was very sad because she had been my constant best friend for 14 years, but she’d lived a full life and an old injury had caught up with her. That was all expected.
Every loss is different because every cat is an individual. I still think about Xanthos, D’Artagnan, Onyx, Arabella and Argent every day. It’s particularly unfair that Piper is gone. She was healthy, loved, and young. There is no reason for her to be gone, and no reason that Cleo should be without her.
I know that things will get better over time. Cleo is still young, and we think she’ll accept another sister eventually, but in the meantime, Cleo wanders the house calling for Piper, and I can’t help but cry a little for her.