What's love got to do with it?

Trying to find lessons or meaning in suffering and death is a fool's mission.  Suffering and death suck.  They are the price we pay to the blind relentless force of nature for the gift of life.  It's not personal, mind you.  But the toll must be paid.  And even calling life a gift gives it more personality than it deserves.  It's random and arbitrary and I distrust folks who think their life is somehow special.  Unique, yes.  There's only one person with your combination of genes, situation and experience. But not special, which implies a reason, a purpose.  Your purpose is to live and enjoy the life force.  If everyone's life had purpose what exactly is the purpose of those freaks of nature who take machine guns into schools and movie theaters?  Or those greedy pigs who can't ever have enough:  money, safety, power.  What's their purpose exactly?  If you follow those folk's purpose down to its logical conclusion you enter some dark twisted cavern with no exit signs.  There was a point to this.  Oh, yeah.  Right.  It's hard to lose a loved one.  Like most people, I've lost plenty.  And then my beloved cat died. It was different.  He was the first non-human person I ever loved.  And by love I mean, I love how he made me feel.  He had own attributes which were considerable--grace, beauty, manners--no kidding he had great manners: would greet everyone when he entered a room, wouldn't interrupt if the conversation got boring--sense of humor and on and on all of which I will indeed miss.  But mostly, honestly, I will miss how he made me feel as a fellow creature, as part of that blind relentless force of nature.  80% of all communication is non-verbal--mighty humbling to a writer, sure, but freeing too in that since knowing Einstein I now know I don't have to talk all the time to let people know what I feel or talk to make them feel good.  Most of the time all we need is each other's physical presence.  And I love that I didn't have to entertain him all the time (sorry dog people)--he had his own life out there bedeviling other creatures, visiting neighbors, sitting in holes or under bushes or on the roof.  Yikes. And when he needed food--he didn't like to dine alone--or companionship he would come in and be with us. Or sometimes we would go outside to be with him.  And we would enjoy his life force and he ours.  Could I enjoy this same relationship with any other cat?  I don't know.  And I don't know if you can call it love, but I sure do miss it.  And I know that it sucks.