Dying and un-dying

Our cat, Buster, died this winter, having lived 17+ years, outliving his twin Angus, surviving (and healing from) feline diabetes, and giving us more pleasure than I'm sure we deserved. He was lovely.

I'm always taken by coincidence and serendipity, which doesn't make me unique - it's a common human trait or so I've read. Currently, I'm reading Christopher Hitchens "Hitch 22" which was written before he knew of the cancer that eventually killed him. The version I'm reading is the paperback (but e-book) so it has a preface that he wrote knowing about the cancer. Yesterday I read the first chapter in which he talks about reading about his own death because of a typo in an arts magazine ("the late Christopher Hitchens...."). He continues to talk about what that does to people who hear the news of their death before they die (Mark Twain, et al).

Then, when I came home from work, I found that someone had done a street-view goole-map of our house. And there, on the lawn, in his usual sunny spot, was Buster our cat. As alive as ever.