It's been four years. Four wonderful years with a person I have not been apart from for even one day in that entire time. He understands my moods, my taste in music, my other friends. He is a generous giver of unconditional love.
Yesterday he was shot!
He's still alive---just. He doesn't understand violence. He just understands, and thrives on love, yet he was shot at point blank. With a hole in his skull on a freezing night, he came home. HE CAME HOME. With indescribable pain, he managed to stumble back to the home he knew was his sanctuary. He didn't want to disturb me in the middle of the night. Experiencing a pain too much to contemplate, he struggled up into a cardboard box I had elevated for him from the damp floor outside the back door which he had used to relax in during the days when the wind blew from the west. He didn't want to disturb me..
Mozart is my best friend. He is part of my soul. He is currently fighting for his life. He loves children and they love him. He taught all who came into contact with him that a gentle manner and the unconditional giving of affection is all that's needed to be happy.. Those who don't know Mozart may say, “It's just a cat, get your act together.” If that's their attitude, they've not experienced the joining of an extraordinary magical energy and a wonderful love that is so special, words have not been created to express it.
I hope my very best friend will continue to inspire friends and at the same time give me the energy to carry on in a world that has, at this moment, for me, become a different place.
Two days later:
Mozart is home again. At the vet clinic, a rather bleak man told me all the gory details with dire warnings about the future. I poo-pooed the lot. “The cat (he didn't mention his name) is badly brain damaged---------“
“Give me Mozart” I interrupted. “I was told all this yesterday. Just get Mozart for me.”
The vet sidled off through a white door into the "ward" and re-emerged a century later with my darling. Mozart's eyes flickered in recognition. My heart sunk into a depth I didn't know existed. A tear rolled from my eye. He was a shadow of the wonderful little furry person I knew two days earlier, but he was still my Mozart.
I brought him home trying not to stare at the huge red swollen site of the operation behind his ear. I put him gently down after opening the front door and he immediately wobbled his way over to his plate and looked at me for food. I fed him his favourite and he ate it. MOZART'S HOME.
Ceidrik Heward
