Snowball disappears

Less than a year later, Snowball disappeared. He had been very ill for a couple years and was 18-years-old. We looked all over the house then started to look outside. No Snowball. Then James applied some detective skills. He saw a hole in a grate in the garage and some white fur clinging to the loose wire. James remembered going into the garage earlier that day. Maybe Snowball had followed him into the garage and perhaps escaped through the grate. We reasoned that he was ready to die and went off to do so alone. Animals sometimes do that.
I remember thinking if that had been me, I would have felt so guilty, but James and my husband seemed to just understand that these things just happen. No one blamed him. I certainly didn’t. But I would have blamed myself if Snowball had followed me into the garage, for this was the year OCD struck me with a vengeance.
I had been preparing James for several years that when Snowball died we would get two kittens. Maybe calicos. As it happened, I found two calico kittens who needed a home a few months later. James named his cat Spunky because he wanted a spunky cat. She is not spunky.
I named my cat Melody after the editor of my first published article. The article was about OCD. Melody did turn out to be quite melodious and she turned out to have OCD! Sort of. She stares at pictures and spots on walls. She stares at herself in the mirror. She’s fearful of people, especially young male workers and often hid under the bed when they came to our home when she was a kitten. In her younger years she nervously scratched the furniture – and my arms – until we had her declawed. Melody loves certain people foods and eventually developed diabetes which she has survived for seven years. Before sugar was taken away from her one of her favorite things was licking and playing with jelly beans. She’d chase them until they were lost under the couch, then ask for another.
Melody has a reputation for being a “crazy” cat because she lashes out at people other than me. She’s really just giving a little warning because she’s fearful and she feels like she’s being teased. Because her reputation precedes her people tend to approach her with caution, and it does seem like she is being teased. She’s more anxious than the other cats and I could relate to that. Over the years, as she’s aged, she’s mellowed and doesn’t seem as anxious. She cuddles more and seems more relaxed. And so am I! It’s as if we’ve both recovered together.