Returned – with thanks!

So, here he is! Home, happy and delightfully hungry, after four days on a drip. Our beloved and very dear Jeoffry, minus a few more teeth and with a bit of a disability in using his tongue, is still able to hunker down over a delicious bowl of his favourite dish of meat and gravy. Animals are really remarkable, aren’t they? None of us knew where this emergency would end; we were without him for three nights, and thought of him in his transparent box, within a room empty of companions but occasionally visited by a caring nurse or vet, and him wondering where we – his family – had all gone to and why, in his hours of pain and fear, he had been abandoned.  But Barnaby tells me that, just as when he went away for his knee operation, and spent a night away from Kemo Sabe in terrible pain, he knew with complete and utter certainty that she would soon return, and that she was reaching out for him across the miles, strengthening his understanding that all must be for the best when the love between us is so strong. Jeoffry nuzzled us thoughtfully after he emerged from his cage. He then strolled out into and down the garden, greeting the new Pardiggles which are quadrupling in size in the pond, and saw that everything is thriving and happy he is home. The future none can tell, of course, but he is restored to the life of a cat nearly fifteen years old and we thank all the vets and nurses who rushed to his aid one quiet, unremarkable Sunday afternoon, and set him on the road to recovery right away.