I did some math the other night and realized that if I could come up with a story for almost every day of Marla's life, whether real or a Marlaism, that would be close to 7,300 stories (365 days * 20, to make it easy.)
I'm not going to number them, rather leaving the stories much like that Richard Wright novel I once read, where the stories all seem to flow together without chapter heds. Nor am I going to count them; when I'm done I will pronounce it so.
It's been getting easier as the days go on, but it's the little things that we miss. No more glancing over at a snoozing cat, then deciding that five more minutes of sleep would be good. No more sleeping on back, so Marla can sleep in the crook of my arm, head on the inside of my elbow. For that matter, no cold cat purring so loud we almost can't fall asleep, or cold cat sleeping underneath the covers (Jenn almost squished the poor kitty one time, as she didn't realize Marla was under the blankets with me.)
And Marla would be under the blankets the whole time, too.
I don't have a cat to say goodbye to in the morning, to tell to be good to the other people in the house (or occasionally, if Marla was left alone, to be told not to play the radio too loudly and annoy the neighbors.)
I don't have someone to tell me not to go to work. I'd tell her I have to, if she wanted cat food, and the next time I know I'd find myself locked outside the house. "Marla!" I'd call. "I don't even have my keys!" And then a window would open, a brown paw would drop a set of keys, and then PHOOM! the window would shut.
And it's the silly things, too. I didn't want to take restaurant leftovers with me from my parent's house partly because I indicated they were mine by writing my name and drawing a snoozing cat, complete with mouse or fish or both in a sleep bubble.
Now I don't have reason to draw that anymore.
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