Why has my cat been acting like this?

I believe your story. Many cat owners have reported similar observations about behavior. When one of our cats died, the other assumed all his favorite sleeping spots, too, which were places that the surviving cat had never napped in. I don’t know the reason, but it does seem to be a real phenomenon.

Did Ashes see Luke pass away or find him after he passed? Was Luke sick? If your cat, Ashes, is aware that Luke died ..it is possible that this is his way of mourning his friend.
If Ashes is not aware what happened to Luke, he could be searching for him by imitating certain behaviours.

Either way, Ashes is experiencing a loss. It will take some time.

The best you can do is keep an eye on him to make sure he is staying healthy throughout this process. It will help considerably if you keep to your routine as well.

Oh, here is something that explains the mourning process much better than I did. It explains the searching behaviour that is a normal occurance in mourning cats.

For some reason I couldn’t edit my response to add the link.

Very good find, @PluckyDog. We observed that searching behavior with several of our cats over time, when one passed on. When my older son went away to school, the cat who adored him pined for weeks. And he went through it again every time the son came home on break and left again.

Agree totally with @PluckyDog my older cat did similar things after her younger companion died five years ago… The one thing she did that she had never done that stuck in my mind was to jump onto the top of the living room door & perch herself there for quite some time, this was always exclusively the behaviour of her younger friend, she used to get up there to get a better view out of the living room window, also again she took up sleeping in the younger cats bed :-/
I could see she was grieving, it was just so obvious, she looked so forlorn for weeks…… still we all grieve the loss of friends, animals are no different I should think.

Something similar happened with my male cat when my female cat passed away. Esme had a weird habit of “chewing” when there was nothing in her mouth… Sort of like a “tsk” sound or like the sound you might make if the roof of your mouth were itchy. It looked like she was chewing something, but there was nothing to chew… It’s hard to describe!

Anyway, Archer had never done that before, and started doing it a few months after Esme died. Esme’s been gone now for close to 3 years and Archer still chews.

Seems like it’s pretty common for grieving cats to take on their lost loved ones’ mannerisms. That’s pretty sweet, I think.

We have two bengal-type cats, brother and sister. They look very different and have different characters, but are very much of the same weirdness. One thing we notice often, is mimicking behaviour. It seems to me that all of the cats here are deeply intelligent and observant. With our two living, breathing ones, jealousy and a desire to be the ‘favourite’ is very apparent.

The mimicry gets our attention and is vastly amusing – both cats respond well to us having a good laugh at them! I hadn’t heard of the ‘searching’ behaviour before, so sweet and poignant. At a guess I’d say that the mimicking of recently lost house-mates is simply a way of maintaining something understood as pleasurable, both in a grief sense (memory) and as a means to keep affection going. Embodying some of the characteristics that maintained loving attention when the lost one was alive, perhaps. As time passes and it becomes obvious that love is not lost, perhaps the behaviours fade.

As I am writing our two are having a fight on the stairs, I’m pretty sure they know I will go and have a look in a mo…

Ashes is grieving. I am sorry for your furry friend loss.

Some people round stuff up and purge right away. During Ashes’s grieving period I’d let him have a few of Luke’s belongings around yet.

Our cat, Tigger-roo is currently living with (but he will die in the next year of) cancer. Lately, our other male cat has been going up to him and giving him large kisses on his forehead. This is out of character for this particular cat, but he seems to know it’s what Tigger needs from him.

@SpatzieLover that is so dear, they do know exactly what is going on and your male cat will probably realise before you when Tigger-roo’s time has come. Big love to the felines x

Luke wasn’t sick, but was considered old for his breed (He was almost 13.) Our vet told us he would most likely have a shorter lifespan than most cats, and Ashes could live to be 15–20. He was healthy, but it was his time to go.

I had no idea this behavior was so common! It amazes me. Animals are incredibly observant, and people don’t seem to give them the recognition for it. The worst part is, we have a memorial garden in front of one of our windows where we bury our deceased pets and make them little “stepping stone tombstones,” (I hope that’s not weird, but they’re family here.) and when Luke passed, Ashes walked up to the basket where Luke had died and was resting in, and he put his paw gently on Luke’s face, and then on his shoulder. He didn’t claw him or try to play, he was just saying goodbye. I also let him see the box Luke was to be buried in when we put him in it, and he put his paw on that as well, and meowed. I put Ashes in the house when we buried Luke, and Ashes sat at the window and watched. When we placed the box in the ground, he became really stressed and started clawing at the windows, pacing and crying. It was the most upsetting thing ever. I’m tearing up just thinking about it. Poor little guy, he misses his friend. We still have Luke’s bed which Ashes often visits, but he doesn’t sleep in it. He sniffs it and stares at it.

Thank you all so much for your answers and your stories.

Oh how sad but how beautiful. Such a real closure for Ashes. He understands.
I am sorry for you all but happy Ashes has such a loving home and got to say goodbye.

I do not know whether my Jillycat ever really understood what happened to her brother Jacky. One night he did not come back [but he had done this before]. By the next day when he didn’t show up for food, we worried. And the agonizing search went on for days including even calling the people who pick up dead animals.

The final painful ending was him being found behind some bushes poisoned in a neighbor’s yard. And he had been there for more than a few days. When S/O went to “bring him back home” he was in a sealed box to spare us [his sister and me] the pain of seeing him. I don’t know if she knew from the smell what had happened. But she looked for him and became depressed. They were like two halves of a whole and it really hurt. All I could do is heap love on her. And she started sleeping my chest, like he used to do. She always stayed at the foot before.

Long after he had been cremated, we buried his ashes and got her to stay for a minute while we buried his collar and favorite toys and said his 100 names [or nearly 100]. But she didn’t understand.

It aged her—he kept her playful and active and trying new things. She is quieter, gentler, and loves best to crawl under the covers for hours on end now.

I get a ‘new activity’ for this question, so I come and read… @taytaysafreak and @anartist‘s words. Now I am full up and tearful! These small creatures represent all of life. It is those of us who carry this much respect and love for our mammalian cousins that surely will preserve life on earth…? And love? And leave something for historians and archaeologists of the future to see, that some humans really did care?