Vanished

There he is. My little cutie-pie Newton. Taken about three years ago before he started losing weight and becoming more and more a shrinking little old man. At just over sixteen and a half years old it's not surprising that he is slowing down. And as of midday yesterday, I asked Reid if he had seen Newton, and we realized that it had been hours since either of us had. We searched every square inch of the house and did not find him. And with a predicted sub-zero night I began to wonder if he had somehow slipped outside, though he has always been a decidedly indoor cat who never made a dash for an open door. At times he would step outside onto the deck or the front steps and sniff the air in an investigative fashion but would almost immediately turn around and come back inside. We did look around outside last night but didn't see him. So then I wondered if he might be in the garage, lots of corners to duck into and hide. Today I took a serious look around in the garage but still no Newton. It has now been well over a day, nearly a day and a half since I last saw my tan and gray tiger with his adorable terra-cotta nose. I can't imagine that he could have survived in the bitter cold, even if he was hunkered down in the garage rather than being out in the elements. I woke to between four and five inches of new snow on the ground this morning, derailing any possibility of finding him out there. He has shrunk down in the last couple of years to just fur and bones and has become neglectful of grooming himself. But he remained a robust eater and easily loped up and down the basement steps to use the litter box. I miss him so. He was a talker, always in a conversation with me. I have known for at least a couple of months that he was declining, he spent nearly all of his time sleeping. If I saw him lounging somewhere fast asleep, I got so I paused for a moment to make sure he was breathing. I hate that I'm talking about him in past tense, but the reality is that he probably is gone in every sense of the word. So I'm sad. And I wonder if we will find his little body. I want to wrap him up in a blanket and hold him again, one more time, even if his kitty spirit has taken leave.