Good-bye Princess...

I have to honor you somehow.  So here it is...your Tribute.   

When I first saw you up there above the trash cans sunning yourself on the 2 x 4 off the roof--your little black paws hanging down, I just kind of smiled and reached up to pet your little feet.  A smaller black cat with beautiful green eyes.  The neighbor came one day and said you had belonged to someone down the street--and your name had been "Sheeba".  You were a little skittish so everytime I emptied the trash I'd see you and have to reach really high to pet your feet.  You started to trust me then and when 6 months later it was Halloween I decided you ("Blackie" as my 93-year-old neighbor referred to you..) well, you had to come inside.  It was raining in LA (imagine that) torrents and torrents of rain -that year-so I decided to let you come in my house for a few days...well, that was the end of it.  You climbed up on my bed and layed on your back stretched out like a fluffy black otter, drooling and purring and that was the end of it. 

 I finally, after all these years, had my first cat.

Time moved on and you were an indoor-outdoor creature but you really loved being inside with me.  You primped and preened yourself so I had to name you Princess.  (even though I'm the "pageant" girl---you really earned your name!)  You had other idiosycracies---If you ever ended up outside you would wait and wait for me at the front door and RUN to my car even if it was  1:00 a.m.--like a dog greeting its owner!!! Running up the drive meowing at me to let you in and scolding my for coming home so late.  Oh!, and then there were my dates.  Oh yes, don't let me pull up in a car and you be outside--oh no!  You would jump up on the hood of the car and look in at us through the window!  No, no, there would be no sitting in a parked car for your owner! :)

In fact, everytime I came home your little black bat ears would be in the window looking like Batman peering out the window--waiting for me to come in.  At night, sleeping around my neck like having a black fur intertube.  Your little paws touching my face purring away and always waiting for me to come to bed so you could stretch out beside me and go to sleep. 

Months went to years--you wandered off a few times--getting caught in the garage or in storage, I'd call and search you out, hearing your cries deep in the garage late at night where you had followed me and I had closed the door leaving you  inside...making my neighbor get up and let you out.  We had a few close calls, you and I--the one time I was bellydancing in my place but I heard a wierd hissing noise and there you were--fluffed up and backed up to the outside door with a coyote right in front of you--wow!  thank God I caught that one in time!  Oh, and you survived the neighbors yippie little dog running across the street and barking- and barking -chasing you into the back yard.  That happened twice until I had to tell them to knock it off.

Finally you got the gray hair around your throat like a graying mane with all black and the gray distinguished collar...you still raced around the yard, still playing hide and seek--or when I brought a blanket out to lounge in the front and read a book in the sun--you lay on the hot walkway rolling on your back or curling up on my lap.

So, a decade later from the days of the sun when I first met you...you started to fade.  Lost the appetite, limping, sleeping in the same place all the time.  You went from 8 lbs to 5 lbs and skinnier by the moment.  I could tell you weren't right--even though you still purred at night--putting your paws on my face, showing me how content you were.  The night before I took you to the vet I knew it was the end of your little life.   I couldn't even sleep with you that night because I would just cry.  So I just slept in the living room--you on my bed waiting for me.  Me walking in every hour or two and laying down for 20 minutes at a time, petting your little face, you still purring and me saying, "I love you forever" and "Why can't you live forever?"

The vet said you didn't look good.  They said you wouldn't last past 3 months to 6  months and certainly not a year.  You were losing weight fast and were having trouble walking.  They said I made the right decision.  I knew you weren't doing well.  They gave you your shot and brought you to bacl tp me in your kennel.  I took you and went to lay you to rest.  Petting your little black paws for the last time and kissing your little head, your body still warm... I whispered, "thank you for being the best cat ever." Then I put you into the ground and covered you up--laying you to rest between two big trees -- the great outdoors where you were liked to be when we first met.  I put a little marker on top and I stood up and said good bye.  Thank you for 10 great years.  All my friends loved you.  I loved you.  I will never, ever forget my little black furry friend.