4.15.2021

missing

One of the cats has been missing all week.

The boys made flyers to post at the park, fragile paper pleas, and they've been paying extra attention to their remaining pet, worried about his feline grief. 
They've managed school on the computer, practiced daily piano and mounted backyard nerf dart battles. They tend to hold it together all day, and sob at bedtime.

We've each spent part of the past year feeling made of glass.
It's difficult to watch the boys grapple with the continuous presence of an absence, an exquisite loneliness.
Are we in the homestretch of the hard part, I wonder?
Will the cat come home?
We only know luck by its opposite.

We spend lots of time staring out the window, waiting.
The ghostly outline of hopscotch boxes on the driveway are still visible after light rain.
Nothing lasts. This is not news, but we cherish things all the more when we remember it.

2 comments:

rht said...

Furry love will break your heart.

Diana said...

Oh no! What heart ache. Thinking of all of you as holding you close in our hearts.