My cats saved my life. I was 35, dying of pneumonia and all alone, crying, too weak to move, knowing I wouldn't live through the night. They heard me crying and they came running. They hopped up, one on either side of me, and washed my face and neck and hands with their little pink tongues, then tucked themselves in between my side and my arm, one on my left and one on my right, and purred.
Somehow, I found the strength to live, right then and there. I just could not leave them. I couldn't. I made it through the night and that night my fever broke. The next morning I was able to cough and I knew I'd beat the illness.
They didn't leave me alone for a moment while I was recovering, except to eat and use their bathroom. They followed me from room to room, even camped on the bath mat while I showered. They sat on other chairs at the table while I ate. When I slept they lay beside me. I woke to see one or the other of them gazing at me lovingly. One would watch over me while I slept, then the other would take over.
All of this actually happened.
When they were deathly ill, five years later on, from some kind of cat pneumonia (!) it was my turn. I split my workday, started early so I could come home to them at lunch. I held them in my arms and we gazed into each others' eyes for hours. I rocked them and held them steady so they could use their toilet, cleaned them and wrapped them in fresh warm towels, rigged up a large safe cage for them to stay safe and warm in while I was at work, fed them baby food and lactose-free milk and vitamins using an oral syringe. I nursed them back to health and we had five more years together before cancer took them both.
Two years after that pneumonitis it was their turn again... I had major surgery and almost died, and while I recovered, they were there. The cat sitter I hired to feed them and take care of their litter pans* was astonished, because he came by twice every day, and every time he came by when I was at my weakest, there they were, watching over me. By then I had four of them, and they were literally all around me: one on the headboard of my bed, one at my feet, one on my right, one on my left. Every time. (*because I wasn't supposed to lift anything more than a full coffee mug.)
Cats are loyal. Cats are some of the most loving creatures on the planet. I will care for cats all the days of my life, because cats have cared for me.
(This is not meant to disparage dogs. Dogs are wonderful too. I knew someone whose dog nursed her through a broken leg the way my cats nursed me through pneumonia. But I owned cats, and they were the light in my life, and I'm still here because they were there.)
Edit in: this very moment, my newest cat (2.5 years) is chirping at me asking to be petted as she sits on my right, and my older cat (12 years) is drowsing on my left, with one paw just touching my leg.
_________________
"I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people," said the man. "You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides."
-- Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
Last edited by Esmerelda Weatherwax on 22 Feb 2018, 11:46 pm, edited 5 times in total.