Heartbroken

[muninnhuginn]

Last night, Little watched Bones, The Truth in the Myth.

She's never had much time for TV: occasional clips of birdsong have had her briefly--lip-lickingly--hopeful; big cats' roars have made her uneasy. Mainly, since the demise of One Man and his Dog, she's ignored the set, or has included it, along with books, laptops, knitting... stuff, in the ctegory of things that get in the way of her humans spending sufficient time adoring her.

But last night, Little watched Bones.

Purely by chance, she was sitting near the set, when Bones and Brennan visited the pet psychic. At the beginning of the scene, Little's ears pricked up, homed in on the TV. The moment the white cat appeared, lounging on the arm of a sofa, she was transfixed. She stared at the lower right-hand part of the screen, barely glancing at the little lap dog in the centre, ignoring entirely the large green parrot, taking in the sight of other white cat.

She moved forward, patted the screen, resumed her vigil. (I've not seen screen-tapping since she played her own game of spot the sheep dog.) When the scene ended, she went back to the screen and tapped the same, now cat-free, space.

Then she went to the patch of carpet under the piano where Big spent his last days.

She cried out.

It couldn't have been much clearer: she thought she'd seen Big. She still misses Big. Misses him so she's little by little starving herself away.

She spent the evening periodically checking the screen for her brother. She'd fallen asleep by the time I caught the same scene on Living+1 and hence missed that opportunity. Today she's even checked the F1 qualifying laps for him.

It's heartbreaking watching her grieve.

Comments

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

It's strange how cats don't all behave the same. When Kosh died, Talia didn't miss him at all, and indeed, she seemed happier to no longer be dominated by him.

In three weeks and a day, we get the new kittens. Again, a pair of Abbies, one male, one female. It'll be interesting to see how these interact, though the fact they're actual litter mates (unlike the previous case, where Kosh was some days older and may well have dominated Talia pretty much from her birth) may make a difference.

[muninnhuginn]

I'd hoped Little would have benefitted from not having Big bouncing on her: their occasional "spats" were poud and generated much extra fluff. But, no.

As far as we know, they were litter mates, and that may make a difference.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

When I met and then moved in with bellinghwoman, she had sibling ginger cats, Elric and Morgaine. They both went in quick succession - due, we think, to liver failure from eating something they shouldn't have. I don't think we detected any grieving from the tom, but he was himself ill when the queen went.

(Elric died in July 1996, IIRC - the day we were picking up two car loads of friends and driving up to Manchester for the first Discworld Convention. Everything was so hectic we didn't get to grieve until we got home, and had an empty house.)

[elfwhistletree.livejournal.com]

Poor kitty, and poor you ♥

Raffles was sick when I showed him the body of his run-over sister - apart that I think all of our cats have been either too callous or too unimaginative to grieve. Which is good, in its way - Little is suffering for being smart :-(

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That is indeed terribly sad.
Moon hunted for Caspian and called for him for months and months. They definitely grieve.