Sweet Gizmo

Last week the painter guy finished with the most dreaded room for me [For him as well since it has carpet and not tile].
It meant all the furniture and pictures and just the whole room had to be disturbed.
And possibly some more of Roger's DNA may have been lost.
And as the widows and widowers know, this is a fear I have right now.
That one day no evidence of Roger's existence besides my memories of him will exist in my home.

So Friday night, the wedding photos in my room came down.
It was hard. It was a hard day all around but this made it even harder.
I put two of my favorite framed photos back up-the one I use for my profile picture on here and one from our trash the dress session where Roger is jumping over me (just watch the slide show, I know it's in there).
The other two I removed as I am making a headboard for the bed out of canvas but that is not the point here plus I just wanted to move them.
Out of direct view.

After all that painting plus the painting I did myself, I had a stack of frames with wedding photos and trash the dress session to do something with.
The something?
Well, I decided to hang them along the stairway up to the bonus room.
Roger's room-the one where he is currently located as well as where he had his meditation area.
It is also the room where I have been storing all other Roger related memorabilia and stuff from the wedding.

I came up with a very scientific way of hanging the photos that I know Roger would not approve of but he is not here to stop me so there.
There are 15 stairs up to the bonus room.
On stair eight, I hung the official wedding day photo. The one Roger picked out but I asked for it to be black and white.
On stair eleven, I hung another wedding one.
On stair four, I hung another one from the trash the dress session.
Then I put some small 4x6 photos in between that used to be in the wedding niche near the living room.

The stairway looks quite nice.
I can still see them as I come home but they are not in direct line of vision. I have to look for them. This is good.

Now, I must mention how much the cats love the bonus room.
They always have so it is not anything new, but they adore this room probably more than they love to eat.
I think it is because its just a big empty space to play and it has always been pretty much off limits to them. And of course they want what they cannot have.
Before they would meow for food, they would meow to go into this room.
They will beat anyone up the stairs if they even remotely hear someone climbing the stairs (I sometimes use this trick to find them when they are hiding in rooms on the other side of the house).

So when Gizmo saw me starting to climb the stairs, she raced to the door at the top.
"Are you going in there? Can I come?" I saw in her face.
"No kitty, I'm just hanging these photos."
And of course each time I climbed up and down the stairs she would carefully watch me.
"Are you going in there now? Can I come now?"

Now, after I was done, I was admiring my work while standing near the top of the staircase.
"Pretty good measuring system" I thought and probably said out loud.
"I think I really like these here" I said to Gizmo.
And being the sweet kitty and me being the insane widow I am, she was looking up at the frame in the middle-the official wedding day photo.
I asked her "Are you looking at the photo?"
She looked at me and then back at the photo.
She seemed like a small child looking up at something she could not quite see.
And yes, I realize I'm reading a lot into this simple gesture of a very curious cat, but it touched me.
It made me cry (surprise, surprise).

I went down to the eighth stair and we looked at it together.
She was not really moving.
So I picked her up so she could see the photo better.

My sweet sweet Gizmo.
I know she has no idea what she is looking at, but it did seem for about a second in my grieving head that she was looking at him.

I put her down and we both descended the stairs and went on our way.
Sweet sweet Gizmo.