One last look at the kittens...

Since the fire I've been walking around with my camera in my purse. I usually have my camera with me, whether I am walking to work or having a day out. While I've started to use my Blackberry for mobile uploads, I always keep a decent point-and-shoot for when a moment calls for preservation in higher quality.
My camera has made my purse felt heavy these last two weeks - those Last Photographs, you know? Like a final voicemail from a loved one, or a piece of mail that arrives after the sender has passed. I now have two distinct eras: Before Fire (BF) and After Fire (AF).

There is a hole in my heart where Lily and Fog have lived for so many years. Sometimes I thought I loved them so much my heart would burst! Every day I'd come home and call out to them, "Kitt-ennnns! I'm home, where are youuu? I've missed you all day long." They'd scamper to greet me, then trot along after me as as I went about my home business. Lily would chirp with excitement; she made the silliest sounds. When she'd jump onto my lap from the ground she'd actually make a Nintendo/Mario Bros. sound. Those mews were one of a kind.

The only reason I had taken these photos was because Lily had taken up a goofy new habit and I got such amusement from her antics I'd take a photo of anything new she was up to. The reason for Fog's final photos are much more sentimental. My mom had asked me why there hadn't been pictures of him lately and I explained that with his dementia at an alrmost critical stage he didn't have much longer and I wanted to remember him as he was before - not with the confused look in his eyes that made me sad to meet his gaze sometimes. A few nights BF I had struck up a game to make my mom smile since she loved Fog so much - it was called "Where's Fog?" We only got through two nights of it, and maybe I'll share those later, but this one coming up was a spur of the moment self portrait of the two of us together.

Now I present my greys, in their final moments at home. I wish I could touch them; the photos make them feel so near. Sometimes when I open my phone and look at the images there I touch the screen and whisper everything I would have said to them, although I talked to those cats ALL the time! I feel pretty comforted in knowing they felt like treasures.

These clothes were on their way to be donated before Lily dug them out of the bag and made a kitten-nest.

With Old Man Fog - he had lost a lot of weight, so he was light, but his rumble-purr was still deep.