I usually listen to podcasts late in bed (basically to relax the eyes and eventually fall asleep). This one almost brought a tear to my eye when your tale came to the point of departure.

I grew up with quite some cats and from those, two actually grew old in our household, the last one was blind for her last 1&frac12; or 2 years. She was mostly outside, mind you. Poor thing.

Cats can be very sociable. They feel when you're ill and there's even been a story of a retirement home cat in England that sensed when a person was dying. Then, it went to that person's room, sat on the bed and spent cosy company until it was all over.