{"id":7057,"date":"2026-09-02T18:32:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T01:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=7057"},"modified":"2026-09-02T18:32:54","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T01:32:54","slug":"love-in-the-time-of-cat-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2026\/09\/love-in-the-time-of-cat-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Love in the time of Cat Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"I thought I was done with cancer. I fought it and won. I hope I did<br \/><br \/>Last weekend I got a new series of tesst for my sweet cat Simon, and he has non-treatable lung cancer.<br \/>He is ten years old. We hoped he could live that much more. Now we are on cat hospice.<br \/>There are tears and survivors guilt. How is it that I could have recovered and he cannot?<br \/>He\u2019s still with us. He is weak but still loves us and can play.<br \/>I am thinking of what love means from this small cat.<br \/>Pretty much the same thing as love means from anyone.<br \/><br \/>he\u2019s glad to see me. He wants to be where I am. He gives a chirpy purr meow when I pet him unexpectantly. He has been our kitty for so long, it breaks my heart to think that he won\u2019t be able to greet me this way much longer.<br \/><br \/>So we watch him, and check in on him often. He needs help to junp down from his usual places.<br \/><br \/>He doesn\u2019t know that he shouldn\u2019t. But if he does, his breath heaves and his heart races.<br \/><br \/>So we race to catch him before he jumps, and take him to his next favorite space.<br \/>I can remember all the ways that this cat made me feel good. Right now, this means that I race after him to make sure that he feels good.<br \/>It\u2019s not about me getting from him. <br \/>It\u2019s broken my heart open, and the whole family is cooperating to help him be as comfortable as he can be for however much time he has left.<br \/>We are considerate of one another far more than before.<br \/>Love is bigger than I can say. <br \/>I think I know. And  then I realize I do not.<br \/><br \/>Archeologists found some ancient bones showing that humans have taken care of disables children, feeing and caring for them so that they could grow.  <br \/>Why?<br \/>Love is strong. Love is more than what it gives. If I were strong only for myself, I could get lazy. Good enough is good enough.<br \/>But when a little helpless one needs me, I will make the effort. Scientist want to call that an advantage. Maybe it is.<br \/>Or maybe the practice of love is higher than human advantage. I don\u2019t know. <br \/>I know we are all going to love our Simon cat as long as we can and even after.<br \/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thought I was done with cancer. I fought it and won. I hope I did Last weekend I got a new series of tesst for my sweet cat Simon, and he has non-treatable lung cancer.He is ten years old. &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2026\/09\/love-in-the-time-of-cat-cancer\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7057"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7060,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7057\/revisions\/7060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}