Can Theo be the new Chuck?

     At first I'm not sure if I should take the idea seriously--that Theo is  the new Chuck.

    I mean, my first thought is to stop writing the blog. Chuck is gone. I feel like I have lost my inspiration. For me, every adventure has centered on the things that Chuck did, the dreams he had, the ideas that popped into his furry little head. 

    But then I admit to myself that I do have memories of the two of them doing a lot of meowing together in those final days. Chuck is outside, as usual, and Theo is standing by the patio door. They are deep in cat conversation.

    Or Chuck is lounging on the sofa and Theo comes up. Their two cat heads are pressed together, whispering for what seems like a long time. Is Chuck trying to convince him to step up to the plate or is it the other way around?

    "You can do it, Theo," I imagine Chuck saying. Or "Somebody has to go with mom and dad when they're traveling to all these places. You don't think those two kittens they're going to adopt are going to be ready? Michelangelo? He's just a kid. Sienna? She's a girl. This is a man's job."

    Or, is it Theo who is trying to prove himself to Chuck? "I spent two years in a cage. They stuck all kinds of needles in me," I can hear him saying. "If I can survive that, I can survive anything."

    Now that part is true. Theo, who is named after Theodore Roosevelt, was imprisoned in a testing lab for two years before he was rescued. He swears--meow, meow--he has little memory of his time there, but I wonder. 

    He puffs out his chest whenever I bring it up. He has a number tattooed into his inner ear which is now blacked out as proof of his rough upbringing.

    All I know is that the knapsack we were going to throw out after Chuck passed over mysteriously re-appears on the chair where it always sits. Waiting for a new adventure?

    That's when I say to Dan, "I put that knapsack in the garage. Now it's back on the chair. I think Theo wants to be the new star of Hot Blogging with Chuck. I think Chuck somehow made that knapsack . . ." I know I sound a bit crazy.

    We consider. Theo's only three, but Chuck was even younger when he started traveling. He's rascally like Chuck. Amazingly curious. 

    But is he cute enough? We rifle through some of the photos we've taken. 

    Does he have star appeal? (Yes, that's Theo posing, half on half off the hibiscus plant he sits on in the sun.) 

    Before we can make up our mind, decide if we should take Theo with us on our next adventure, we get a sign. And that's the crazy part. We can't tell if it means what we think it means.

  

    What if Chuck is still with us, guiding us somehow? 

    Before I tell you what happened, let me be perfectly clear. Theo is his own cat. He has his own personality. Chuck had a very quiet voice. Theo makes himself heard. Chucky always slept upstairs at night. Theo likes to sleep on the downstairs sofa. And during the day Chucky had a favorite fluffy cat bed that he loved to snooze in. 

    Suddenly, Theo's meows have grown softer. Suddenly Theo has taken to sleeping upstairs, not down. And now he's snoozing his afternoons in Chucky's fluffy cat bed. 

    Dan and I both say it together--Is Theo becoming Chucky? Or has Chucky come back . . . and somehow . . . found a way . . . to 

                                  TO BE CONTINUED