What a week.
I lost my best friend two days ago. Wooby. He was 18. Yep, my cat was 18 years and 2 months old. Most people will never understand what he meant to me...I'm still discovering some of my feelings. But ultimately, I miss him. I miss how he purrs when I hold him. I miss his little coo he would make when he saw me getting his food out for him. I miss how he would yell at me in response to my questions. He would follow me around the house, we'd chat, cuddle, play, I'd rub the white hair off me after he rubbed it on. I miss how he'd lick the tears off my face when I cried. Especially because I'm spending some time crying about him now...and I don't have someone I can hold that comforts me quite the way he did.
I knew the time was right when he turned down his food and could no longer get himself up into a standing or sitting position. I knew when he looked at me and meowed the painful meow while Drew drove us to the vet. I knew the moment he took his last breath and laid his head on my stomach. He looked at me then as if to tell me "thank you". I cried again.
In fact, I've spent a lot of nights crying over him. He was the little engine that could, lived MANY lives longer than he possibly should have. Between bloody battles with other cats in the neighborhood, dark nights crossing a busy street filled with teenage drivers, a couple of poison incidents, colds, fevers, heat stroke...I believe that it was because we had only each other that he knew to keep fighting. And I cried every time thinking I'd lose him. This time, well, I feel that maybe he knew I had someone else to take care of and to take care of me. I think he knew it was time to move on.
We get to pick up his ashes this week...I have an urn to place them in and the last paw prints of his from when he died. I've been meaning to get them since I was little. I'll get a tattoo with them on my chest so people will finally know that the little cat (not a kangaroo) is for Wooby. There will always be an empty space where his food bowl has been for years. I don't know how long until I stop cuddling with the pillow where he used to lay. I wonder when the other animals will stop looking for him in his hiding places. I'm sure I'll cry from time to time. And I do know that I will always love him.
