you mean I'm cat #1?

What does a cat understand about another cat's disappearance?  Do they realize the difference between death, and a former companion going to live in another state?  Did Moth comprehend how ill LucyFur was? (I think so: she smelled different, surely; she kept going away to hospital, and coming back smelling worse; she had a feeding tube in her neck: I spent hours upon hours down in my study coaxing slimy pulverized cat food into her, washed down with seven different medications, at different times of the day - and then presumably I'd emerge smelling weird, too).

It's been a long, long day - and I thank all of you who've written so much for your condolences, your empathy, your understanding.  Losing a dear animal companion - and LucyFur was loved beyond dear - is terrible.  Born in a Silver Lake woodpile; menaced by coyotes when a kitten (and indeed, losing her sister in that way); rescued; driven to Flagstaff for a handoff in a Residence Inn, and us then driving back to Santa Fe wondering if she was still alive, she was so quiet; moving back to LA in that fall of 2007, and then in 2009-10 going to live in New Jersey; then back to two different houses in LA (Silver Lake, and then Los Feliz) and for the rest of her life shuttling between LA and Santa Fe, with nights en route spent at La Posada, in Winslow - she was a well-traveled cat, and expert at hiding behind motel sofas and bed frames.  She would, I'm sure, have said that the highlight of her life was catching a mouse in our living room in New Mexico (and she was humane enough to let it go, when we put the pair of them outside, and it scampered off ...); followed by the time she got out of our new house, here in Los Feliz, and went exploring for an hour or so, unseen by us.  She always enjoyed a little bit of time outdoors (under strict supervision) - reliving scents of the old woodpile.  She loved Emmett and Lola, her first two other cat companions; she was sniffily indifferent towards Bitzi (her sister, born a year later, now living in Connecticut with Alice's sister); she was very uncertain at first when we introduced Kittens.  Although she and Walter Gomez (now living in Minnesota, and adored) never hit it off, she slowly, slowly, made good friends with Moth.

And what will Moth do now?  We are bereft - but Mothy?  Will she relish being an Only Cat (for now)?  Or will she find this a hard readjustment?  Oh, gosh: what an awful day: it's been great to bury one's face in Moth's soft fur.