My lovely cat is a senior citizen. She doesn't really like to play with her toys or chase things as much these days (she's on anti-seizure meds that make her a little unsteady which I think have made her play less enjoyable for her) so she spends a lot of her time looking out/sleeping in front of windows. But, whenever she realizes I'm about to nap, she gets super excited, jumps on the bed, yowls until everything is juuuuuuuust right (her soft blanket on top of mine but perfectly flat etc) but once we're both lying down, she starts purring the with the fury of a thousand rusty chainsaws, regardless of whether she's getting skritched. More so if she can get one of my arms working as a pillow.
So, even while her former favourite activities are falling off, we're both finding weird moments of happy while I try to avoid thinking about the inevitable. And there's something just so wonderful about hearing how aggressively happy she is just to hang out nearby for an extended period of time.
Don't really have a point but we woke up from a nap and I wanted to share.
In no way did I mean to insinuate that a new adoption dulls the pain. I agree there's always room for more love in life; it's the ultimate renewable resource.
My partner spent twenty years with her soul pet, and I was lucky enough to share fourteen of those years. He was such a part of our lives that five years later we still regularly accidentally call his little nephew, now the patron of the house, by his name.