Simple joys

Who would have thought coming home to a pink dot on my bed would raise my spirits so much and make me smile? My cat Winston passed his 20th birthday last summer; he's still loving, still has lots of appetite (at 3:30 in the morning especially) and he's still healthy (mostly), but he's lost his athleticism, maybe his hearing is going, he definitely is developing cataracts, his fur looks crummy no matter how much he grooms himself or I brush him. But he still has moments when he rises to the invitation to play, though nowadays he gives up more readily than even three or four years ago.
The pink dot? It's one of his old Super Balls, which make the most splendid cat toys because of the way they carom off the walls and furniture and roll around the floor like some kind of prey on speed, and because they just fit in his mouth so once they stop moving, or he "kills" one, he can relocate them as he pleases. He's got a basket with a lifetime of (by now stale) catnip-filled mice that he always ignored, plastic bottle caps and a tennis ball he also loves, and three or four Super Balls. It's been years since he went into the basket to take out a toy, but today, who knows what his inspiration was, he got a pink Super Ball and whatever he did with it between the basket and the bedroom, it ended up in the middle of the bed. It fills me with love for him to think that while I'm not here, he occasionally wakes from his ever-deeper, ever-longer naps and has a good play.