Today is Monday, so I was at the University from 8:30am until 5pm and that wipes me out. Stopped at the diner for dinner on the way home, got home, fed the kitties, crashed into bed around 6:15pm . I woke up after 2am with my face covered in tears, sobbing. I had just dreamt that someone had kidnapped my two 22yo cats.
In the dream, for months I tried to find them, scouring the neighbourhood, asking people. One day, about a year later, I am coming back from the supermarket and suddenly hear a meow that sounds like a 23yo kitten. That meow is unmistakable to me. I swiftly turn around and I see my Darwin, all dirty and thin, with an open wound in his lame hind leg. There he is looking straight at me and meowing a storm. About 2 metres behind him is Ambush Bug, almost skeletal-thin, still deaf as a door knob but looking at me with all the love in the world in his big kitty eyes. The twins are back and they are still together. I am so overwhelmed with joy that I drop my groceries to the ground and just rush to hug them. They purr so loudly and that is when I woke up with my face against a drenched pillow, still sobbing tears of joy. Darwin was still fast asleep, pressed hardly against my back. Ambush Bug is still asleep on the pillow beside my head. The youngest (only 18yo), Muffin the three-legged cat, is sleeping in her usual spot too, in the bend behind my knee.
I am still overwhelmed by that dream. They are my children and I love them so very much. To be reunited with the twins in the dream was a profound experience.
Cat's In The Cradle (Harry Chapin)
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