Reflection

I sit cuddling my cat, this tiniest of tigers, a fierce little fighter who just wants his mommy right now. I kiss his head and smell the scent of the vet's office still clinging to him. I'm growing to like that scent, as it's becoming such a part of him. For a brief moment, I feel as if I'm holding his younger self, a fuller body with more substance. But it's fleeting. My head knows it's just the fluids he received earlier that fill him out right now, make him feel like his once-bigger self.

He purrs loudly, then in a flash, he leaps out of my arms as if made well by my attention. He's busy and has things to do, even if those things are brief these days, crammed in between longer and more frequent naps.

Some days he seems almost normal. Only his thinness gives away the truth that he's sick. Other days, like the days we've had this week, his frail little body lets me know that his life is waning.

But still he fights. He fights hard. He likes life, and he lets us know it. He races through the house when he hears me in the kitchen, always hopeful that something good will be given to him to eat. Mail Time is the daily highlight in which he sniffs the fresh air and rolls in the grass in a state of bliss. And sometimes, he even swats at a bit of string when he's feeling a bit kittenish.

So we help him fight for his precious life. How could we not?