Who's mama's bayboo?

My best friend died today.

 She would have been 17 come September 1st. We spent half my life together, and she left my life the same way she came into it - snuggled in my arms in the wee hours of the morning.

 One morning when I was 15, my dad came home, woke me up, and dropped a kitten-cat in my arms. He went to bed, and I eventually fell asleep with the newly-minted YumYum in my arms. Turns out she had followed a coworker of his back to the Herald plant, she was cute and friendly, and so he brought her home to his daughter, who had recently lost her from-birth companion cat, Pena, and her first (and best) dog, Mitzi.

I knew the end was coming. The past few days I watched my baby quickly lose the ability to walk, become listless in the presence of anything but gooshyfood, and yesterday she stopped drinking, too. By 9 last night I knew she wouldn't make it to morning - she had stopped responding to all but the most annoying of pokes. By the time we went to bed at half past midnight, her pupils had stopped reacting to light.

We snuggled, just as we had for seventeen years, with her head on my arm and our bellies together. By 4, she had begun siezing, and it was all over by 4:40am. I wrapped her in the same shawl that I'd snuggle her into during winter and buried her in the backyard, under the oak tree. She's not the only animal buried out there, so I knew how hard digging a deep enough hole would be; luckily, she's wee, and I put her somewhere that not only was soft enough to dig, but had few oak roots and a big heavy object to place on top and prevent other animals from digging her up.

Yes, Ma, she's under the birdbath.

I'm glad that it was quick, in the end, and that she didn't spend days suffering; I'm mad that she had stopped cleaning herself, and so I'm going to remember her with dirty paws along with her fixed stare and grey tongue. But more than anything else, I'm mad that now I really am alone - she was my only true friend and companion, and no human relationship comes close.

 At least she peed on me, at the end;it proves that no matter what, my boobaloo was still my dumb-ass old lady waddlebutt cat.

I miss you so much, kitten.