What would make me get out of bed, past midnight with Niño and Niña comfortably nestled beside me?

It was the thought of the idea of a body and soul. What is it that is embedded in a human body that gives it that spark that we call life? How could it be that my Rosemary was alive and then not?

From spark I navigated to fire, and the image of scanning my hand while holding a lit match became a strong urge I had to satisfy. That the match flame quickly lost its size felt appropriate and seemed to predict gloom and coldness.

We all know that oxidation is all about decay. Cars rust and fires go out when they run out of material to keep burning.

Do we humans oxidize? Do we rust?

A picture that I cannot strike out of my mind is sitting on my living room egg chair with my two daughters and granddaughter Rebecca and watching the funeral people remove the lifeless body of my Rosemary. It was covered with a shroud but I could still feel that vacant presence of a body without life. This is an image that I cannot obliterate from my memory because the concept of a person being alive one moment and then dead a small second later is one that I cannot grasp. 

I cannot remember how we answered (or if we did) when Rosemary asked us, "Am I dying?"

Before the funeral people came I went up to our bedroom. Rosemary looked asleep. I knew this was not true. What broke my heart but also gave me a little comfort was that our female cat Niña was on her stomach asleep. And Niña indeed was asleep. I took the photograph that I had to take. I will never show it to my daughters but I have filed it into my Family File on my exterior hard drive. When I am gone perhaps the girls might spot the picture.

Do cats understand death better than we humans?

Every day I feel that vacant presence and I wonder if am not another fire running out of fuel.