I’ve been struggling for the last couple of days to write a post that has nothing to do with cats or anything terribly serious. I’ve not been having much luck. I’ve got a post started. I’ll eventually finish it. Today has been hard, though. It appears that Porter is in mourning. He’s pretty much done nothing but sleep since yesterday. He’s always been a talker and he’s not had much to say. He’s lethargic. He does seem to be eating and drinking, so that’s good.

It really makes sense. From Porter’s point of view there was a lot of confusion a while ago and he saw us take Bock away in the carrier.  The carrier came home, but Bock hasn’t. We leave for a while sometimes, but we come home. Dunkel has been a distraction, but it’s pretty clear that Porter is ready for Bock to come home. And at some level I think he knows that’s not going to happen. We talk to him. We pet him. We make sure there are plenty of twist ties around for him to play with. He’ll half-heartedly paw at them. There’s a bookcase downstairs that most of them disappear under.  I use this long plastic spoon to dig under it and get them out and that’s turned into one of our little games. Even today he’ll come right over if he sees me by the bookcase. He’ll bat at the spoon while I’m digging around with it. But there haven’t been any twist ties under there today.

Dunkel is a pretty smart kitten. Last night he wanted to play with Porter and Porter was having none of it. He was sleeping at Carla’s feet, which is where he spends most nights now. This was more than the usual teaching moment; It was clear that Porter might have actually hurt him if it had been allowed to continue. I came out to the living room and slept on the couch knowing Dunkel would hang out with me. A couple of hours later I woke up and saw Dunkel walk over to me, yawn and stretch. “Hell,” I said to him, “if you’re sleeping, what the $%@% am I doing on the couch?” So I went back to bed. All day Dunkel has been treading pretty lightly around Porter. Porter, for his part, has been perfectly willing to have Dunkel get close as long as he doesn’t want to play.

I’m sure this will pass. There’s no rushing it. Just like Porter accepted Dunkel in the house because his innate curiosity took over, I’m sure his playful nature will eventually overcome the sadness of losing his lifelong companion and he’ll form a bond with Dunkel.  A different bond, but a bond nonetheless. It’s an adjustment for all of us.

I just wish there were a way we could help him understand.