Complete attitude change

We care for a feral colony that is now just down to 3 cats, Mommy and her 2 offspring Cheeto and Callie. Callie (female) was the most feral, you could not pet her or even approach her until her brother Conan became ill and died a month ago. Almost intantly, the day he died, she suddenly craved human interaction and petting and will even pull our hands toward her. It's sweet, but we can't figure it out. Any ideas what brought on the sudden attitude change? Thanks for your answers,

It´s scary, but I had exactly the same experience - with a human family.
Which story I can tell here as it is for me a foreigner forum:

That year I was teacher for 13-16 years kids in a small town way beyond bigger cities. The pupil Im talking about was a last year; "senior", in this school. I had him in several subjects=classes. (not english! )

He was coming from a family of not the very best reputation as you say. The kid wasnt mean in any way, but his school achievements and his grades were weak.

An awful accident happened during the schoolyear. His older brother, driving drunkenly in a car, driving at night in high speed along the towns main street, crashed into a housewall - and died instantly.
A shock for the family, the school, the town.

And there come the turning point for the boy. Shortly afterwards I did noticed his work improved, him beginning to trying. And soon enough, also his achievements improved. Also the boy himself seemed more satisfied, more harmonic.
When the school year was at end, I was happy he also honestly earned himself better grades in all my subjects/classes.

Surely not top grades, his starting point being too low. But stabile and well earned middle grades.

Im sure he does well in his life as grown up.

I had a similar thing happen to a cat in my feral colony. Blackie was about 11 years old when she died and Larry was about 10 years old. Larry was so feral that I had only touched him once before - on the day that I caught him to get him neutered when he was about 6 months old. After Blackie crossed, it wasn't so much that he got friendly, but he no longer ran away from me, and I could actually touch him when I went out to feed him. What was odd was the fact that from what I could tell, Blackie and Larry weren't close and in fact Blackie was pretty hissy at the other cats. She tended to swot at any cats that got close to her.

I pondered this for a long time and will admit I'll never know for certain why the change in behavior after 10 years. One theory I have is that in spite of the fact that they didn't have much of a relationship, they were companion cats in a feral colony and there was obviously a stronger relationship than I understood. When she died, he made some attempt to transfer that bond to me.

A similar thing happened with Lucky, who lost all of his companions when he was about 6 months old to FeLV. Being so young he really transferred his bond to me and now spends a good amount of time inside the house now. He's younger and it has been easier to influence his behavior.

What I love about cats is the fact that you can't always figure out what they are thinking.

We have several here that have done that. One was born and lived in the park for a few years where we take care of around 50 ferals and decided one day she wanted to come home with us. We've had her for a few years now and has turned into one of our better lap cats!

Here she is in the park:
As a kitten with her siblings


Bo


And at home: