Well, damn

My mother's sole remaining cat has gone missing. We suspect she went away to die, the way old cats do. She wasn't ill or anything, but she demanded to be let out of the house at 2am and there's been no sign of her since. My mother says she never left the garden, and she's not there. None of the neighbours have seen her. The cat would have been eighteen next week, so she was a good age, as they say. Her brothers died recently, one last year and the other the year before. I guess it was her time.

My mother's awfully upset - the house where she's been for nearly fifty years has never been empty of cats before - and so is Milly, who loved the cat dearly. She cried buckets this morning, berating herself for being a baby despite my insistence that it was normal (and good) to cry for the loss of someone you loved. That damn school has put it into her head that only babies cry, so now she hates doing it and will only ever give in to tears with great reluctance. We're going to buy a pot plant tomorrow, for a sunny spot in the garden where Milly can remember Tibby aka Tibalt Prince of Cats (named before my mother realised she was female).