From the Archives: A Square of Sunshine

The day turned sunny today, and now that nearly all the trees are bare the sun shines through the window in the basement door after it leaves the kitchen. I remembered Moses and her sweet, patient following of the sunshine around the house, getting every last drop for the long hours where no sun shone in until it came in the front windows in the late afternoon.

Every day, she needed to go outside on her bricks to soak up the sun and the stored heat from the  bricks she laid on, then she would move to the deck to capture the sun on the decking boards. After that she was scheduled to sit by the back door, behind the thick window in the storm door, to soak up yet more. Her last stop was the basement, to follow the square of sunshine as it moved and became a rectangle and a trapezoid across the concrete floor, until it disappeared in a thin stripe by the door.

Here she rests, not sleeping, on the basement floor in her familiar comma-shape, chin down, front paws curled, hobbled hind legs extended comfortably, and in the shadow next to her hind legs, the tip of her tail is slowly, rhythmically, curling back and tapping down on the floor in absolute bliss. Close enough and I could hear her breathy little purr. You had to know Moses to know when she was happy.

When I tiptoed partway down the basement steps and took this photo in 2005 she was 18, and had taught me much of the subtleties of feline expression, especially formerly feral feline expression.

Still celebrating senior kitties, and all the gifts they have to give.

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