Dealing with grieving cats

I've had the joy of living with many cats over the years, and unfortunately have lived with them long enough to have lost quite a few over the years. I have found that I get through my grief a lot easier when I throw myself into helping the grief of the surviving cats.

My Lucky is grieving right now, and I haven't been able to figure out how to help him. He is my only surviving indoor/outdoor cat, and was good friends with the 18 year old feral (Indie) who died a few months ago, and best friends with my Bob Marley, who died last month from cancer. Indie lived outside and Bob went in and out with Lucky.

Lucky was born feral, and I did not start to socialize him until he was 18 months old. He's now 7 and has calmed down quite a bit, but he certainly is not a lap cat. He doesn't always tolerate handling, allowing me the occasional scritch, and sometimes sleeping in bed with the other cats at night.

Lucky was becoming much more of an indoor cat than an outdoor cat until Bob died. He's picked up Bob's revolving door habit, going in and out about 10 times a day. We also found him on the roof of our house this past week - something that Bob did all the time but Lucky has never done before. I know he's out there searching for Bob and he's agitated that he can't find him. All this, in spite of the fact that on the day that Bob died, I held a "wake" in my house for him. Everyone in the house walked up to Bob to see what happened except Lucky. I brought Lucky up to Bob that day to show him that Bob was gone, but Lucky wouldn't even look and leaped out of my arms and ran away. I've talked to him and explained that Bob is gone. If he were human, I'd say he was in denial.

Lucky doesn't do treats. Lucky doesn't eat wet food with the other cats. Lucky doesn't snuggle. He isn't comforted by things that your typical house cat likes. But he grieves, and I'm at somewhat of a loss on how to help him. I would hate to see him struggle with this for a long period of time. I had a cat grieve for over a year one time, and his eventual comfort only came when he became close to other cats in the house. Lucky gets along with all of the other cats, but his only real friend in the house is Pinky (who is doing the best he can).

Any ideas?

Nothing is nuts Laurie!!

Cat behavior continues to fascinate me. Lucky is trying to make friends with more of the cats in the house, including both Stumpy and Scarlett (my king and queen). Lucky approaches Stumpy in the same subservient way that Pinky does - head bowed, crouched in submission. If Stumpy licks his head, Lucky will curl up next to him. If Stumpy growls, Lucky will remain in his submissive posture until Stumpy accepts him. Last night he did this to Scarlett. Scarlett hissed at him but Lucky held his ground and actually got Scarlett to lick his head. Scarlett doesn't lick other cats heads very often. The great thing about this is that Lucky approaches them while they are laying next to me. I calm down the situation by scratching both of their heads until Stumpy/Scarlett calms down.

But here's the interesting effect of all of this. Scarlett picks the alpha male in the house. After she allowed Lucky to lay next to her for a bit, Stumpy chased him out of the room. Stumpy is alpha in the house. Lucky's attempts to make friends is threatening him. I will have to watch that very closely.

I've been talking to Lucky a lot more and I continue to explain to him that I know he is sad but his buddies are gone. He ALWAYS walks up to me when I talk to him now and jumps up next to me for scritches. As long as I don't tower over him, he seems to be taking it very well right now. He's also responding very well to eye blinks. Yesterday I picked him up and held him and he didn't try to wiggle away for about a minute. It's sad that a loss is the turning point in his socialization, but I'm going to continue to take advantage of this situation.