Niña & Niño

Every day seems to be much like the day before these days.

Rosemary and I used to enjoy our breakfast in bed and we often told each other that it was the best moment of the day. When I go up the stairs with my breakfast tray I know that within minutes Niña will come in from the garden followed by Niño about 30 minutes later. They just want to be with me all the time. And it is the best moment of the day.

I look at them and I glory at how graceful they lie and sleep and how they stare at me without blinking. Then the three of us settle down, I remove my glasses and we fall asleep for a nap. Niño is on my right side and my hand is on him. Niña is between my legs.

That it is the routine every day. By the afternoon, weather permitting, Niño and I walk around the block using Rosemary’s route. I feel the presence of something, someone. I don’t believe in ghosts but then?

I have been thinking about all the above and particularly the Niño walk and bed with the two cats.

She is not there. But it seems that by not being there she is there. As I walk Niño that non-presence of Rosemary is ever-present. Is she there by not being there?

There is that old dictum that, “Absence makes the heart fonder”.

With that feeling in me, I look at my cats and it seems that the three of us are sharing that ever-present non-presence which is a presence in itself. What do they know that I don’t know? Is this why they are increasingly more affectionate?

When I open the closet I can see Rosemary’s shoes neatly arrayed. Her feet were in them. When I look at the cats I know she stroked them. Is this more of a connection than her lovely shoes?

Joan Didion & her husband's shoes