Hanging Out with Baby

For a few months before he came to live with me my cat was called Baby. Sometimes I remind him of this, lovingly calling him Baby and explaining that was his old name until I changed it to Syd and gave him the beautiful home he has been coddled and pampered in for the last 14 years. He might have started out a baby, might still be much younger than me in calendar years, but he is getting old. He shows signs of his age. Arthritis has hobbled his right forepaw. He wails for no apparent reason and limps around the house looking lost and confused.

This weekend a dear friend from junior and senior high school came for a visit with his wife and their daughter who turns two next month. She is their only child, born when my friend was 51. The house was filled with forty and fifty somethings who could have kids in college or even be young grandparents but instead have a geriatric feline formerly known as Baby and a human baby so smart, funny and adorable she brought a new sense of hope for the future.

Not really Baby/Syd and T [for illustration purposes only]