Death has been hovering about lately, keeping me primed and focused on living. Maxwell is a good teacher in this respect, waking me up at 4:30 in the morning, even after having such a hard time breathing the last few days. I get up to let him out and question him- don't you want to stay resting, go back to bed, stay still? Take care. In the way I think of taking care. He looks back at me, clear. Certain. If I am going to live, I am going to live. And I understand. Why bother staying alive, doing this living business, if he can't enjoy things as he does, enjoy his catness. Being. His time prowling about in the back yard, sleeping in the tall grass, checking on the squirrels. Trying for one last bird. Mouse in the shed? Even just getting up to greet the day, lounge in the shade while I sit outside to meditate in the morning. Sit on my lap. Neck scratches. Head pats. Plenty of time to rest and breathe easy. Breathe hard. Live. Such as it is. I actually saw him jump the fence yesterday. Focus on that as it comes. As it goes. And not throw it away even though it is not as it was. As it used to be. I think of our life. How really it is never quite as it used to be. Because it is now. Not then.

I take him snacks in the yard now, hoping to coax some eating from him here and there. This food toting thing has worn off on Eva, who found him in one of his resting spots near the side of the house, between two large patches of daisies, in the sunshine. She now takes him tasty plates of beef and salmon or lobster and chicken each day to keep him enjoying his time here. Licking his lips one last time.

At night he sleeps with me. Or he doesn't. I keep wondering when he will pass, hoping his time will be peaceful and easy. Close to home so that I know. He pushes on with living, taking what he likes, living life {as fully} as he can. As he always has. I laugh, remembering his high jinks from years ago. Opening doors on his own. Ringing the bell to be let out. His strange fascination with every printer we have ever owned. Sleeping on the neighbors' couches. Opening the yard up to other cats, much to the dismay of Agnes.

The other cats treat him well. Magoo still asks to have her head washed. Agnes still eyes him warily. Both are enjoying the greater variety of food entering the house these last several weeks.

I imagine what it will be like when he dies. How I will miss him. But {honestly!} (surely) that's cheating. After all, I will not really know what it is like to miss him, be without him- not really- until he is really gone. Really. I keep this in mind as he sits purring on my lap. I try to be like him. Focus on living. Purr. Enjoy. Be. I feel his presence, as it is now, as it has been for the last 13 years. My cat. My friend. And I know that if he's going to go about this business of living, the least I can do is go about living with him. And set death aside, as it always is, for the time being. And be.

And other times? I cry and know how much I will miss him when his time surely comes. And I let that be as well.