One day in the summer when I was three years old, my next door neighbor brought her son over to my house to play. Him and I formed an extremely strong bond. We played every day, did everything together, and even our families went on vacation together. A year later his family decided to move an hour away, a month before we were to start preschool. My parents thought I would be completely devastated, so they thought that I needed someone in my life to fill the hole that they thought that this would give me. Conveniently enough, about a week later my aunt had called my dad to let us know that her cat had just given birth to a litter of kittens, and if we were interested we should go over and see them. So, on a Saturday, we decided to make the trip forty five minutes away from my house to go see the kittens. There were eight little kittens all fenced in by a child gate in my aunt’s living room. I was in heaven. There is nothing more that a four year old girl would love more than a room full of kittens. As I was playing with them, my dad let me know that I would actually be able to take one home. I was ecstatic. I’ve had quite a few pet fish before this, but a cat? That would play with me? I now knew I had to make an important decision. The first cat I had looked at was a little gray kitten that would not leave my lap. However I was informed that she had already been adopted, so I would need to pick another. I then laid my eyes on a white kitten, who was affectionately named Snowball by my cousin who was the same age as me. It was love at first sight with Snowball and I wanted to take him home with me immediately. My dad and aunt said okay, and as we started to put him in the cat carrier, my cousin bursted out into tears. That was his favorite kitten he said, and it wouldn’t be fair if I got to take him. So then the search continued. I did not like any of the other kittens I saw, so my dad said that we could go look at an animal shelter, and adopt a kitten from there. As we were about to leave, I heard a little meow. I had no idea where it was coming from, so I searched the entire living room until I discovered the source of the noise. In the side table next to the living room couch, I saw a little basket and pulled it out. Inside was a tiny black kitten. He was half asleep, and meowing to no one inside the basket. Immediately I knew he had to be mine, and immediately picked out the perfect name. Lilly.
A few weeks later we took Lilly to get his shots, and I was devastated to learn that Lilly was in fact not a girl, but was a boy. I had fully thought this out. All I wanted was a cat named Lilly, and now what would I change his name to? Expressing these concerns to my dad in the vet waiting room he told me that there was no need to change it. We had been calling him Lilly for weeks, and the name had already stuck so there was no point in changing the name. I agreed, and we took Lilly home.
Being an only child, this cat became my best friend. He was the missing piece of me I never knew I would need. Every morning I was greeted by his little face shoving open my bedroom door, and always jumping on the right side of the bed waiting for his morning pets. He was there every day when I got home from school, and without a doubt would always run right to the door when I got home. Every day I would look forward to seeing him round the corner, and then would swiftly pick him up and bring him upstairs while I did my homework. Once my bedtime rolled around, he would saunter down to his favorite place, a large chair in my basement. If you needed him, you would always find him in one of three places; that chair, the dining room chair all the way to the right, or right in the corner of the staircase that would lead up to my second floor. He was always my pillow to cry on, and was the only one that would be able to help me through my panic attacks about school. Throughout all of my time living at home he was always there for whatever I needed him for. My friends always joked about how they thought my cat hated everyone because he would always hiss and swat at them, but not me. I always used to say he was like his mom, he had a soft spot for the people he knew cared about him the most.
When I left for college, it set in that I would not be able to see him as much as I wanted to. Since Lilly was not exactly loving of others, I knew there would be no way I could bring him to school with me. Leaving for college, I was very sad to leave my parents, but I was even more upset to be leaving my cat. Even two weeks after moving in, the first time I went home I sat on my bed and cried with my cat because I did not want to leave him again. But each time it got easier. To ease my pain my dad constantly sent me blurry pictures of him once a week. Even though these photos were of horrible quality, it made me happy to see him pop up on my screen. Most of these photos were of Lilly sitting on the couch watching TV with my dad (which is what the two used to do nightly), or of Lilly in the bathtub (empty of course) but I loved seeing that he was being well taken care of at home.
About a month into my last semester of college I remember having a very strange feeling, so I had texted my dad to send me a picture of Lilly because I missed him, and he did. But something in that photo was not right. He looked scraggly and extremely skinny, and I had a feeling something was wrong. That Sunday I received a phone call I never thought I would get. My dad, sobbing on the phone, told me that he was coming to pick me up because something was wrong with Lilly. My stomach sank, because I had a feeling that this was the moment I had been dreading all eighteen years of having him. When I got home, I saw him sitting in his favorite spot, the corner of my staircase. He was extremely lethargic, and his eyes were closed. This behavior was extremely abnormal for him and I knew something was seriously wrong. My family and I agreed to take him to the vet the next day, and I spent all night with him, watching him get progressively worse. He could barely walk anymore at this point, so I carried him down to his favorite chair in the basement and let him rest there for the night. None of us slept that night, so the next morning we all were coming up with every way to postpone going to the vet. Eventually we packed up his things and brought him and all of his belongings to the vet. Crying the entire way there, we finally got to the emergency vet office and they put us in a really nice room with a couch and a private bathroom. I was extremely confused about what this room was for, and it was not until I noticed a poem about The Rainbow Bridge on the wall that I realized. I was not leaving with my best friend today. The vet came in and told us our options, and it was up to me to decide what to do. I knew he was suffering, and he was so old that I did not want to put him through anymore than he needed to. So in that room in the MSPCA, Lilly passed in my arms. I sat with him until the nurse came and brought him away, and I said goodbye.
No one ever talks about how strange the feeling is when you leave the vet after losing your pet. The exit outdoors was right next to the room, and my dad and I just stood there looking at each other. Then we walked to the car and got in in silence. We left all of his things like his leftover food, food bowls, and pet carrier at the vet because we could not bear the pain of bringing it home. Once we got home, I packed up all of my things and left to go back to college, because none of the professors understood the loss I just had. I got back to my apartment and sat in my room staring at the ceiling for hours. I had no time to process the traumatic loss I had just gone through. In less than twenty four hours, I had discovered Lilly was not doing well, and then he was gone. Just like that. If anyone knows anything about me, it is that I am obsessed with black cats, specifically mine. This loss made me feel like I had lost such a big part of me, and to this day has been one of the worst things I have gone through. Every time I have gone home since then, my house feels empty. I swear that I can still hear him running around, and when the wind blows my door open I always look because I am so used to it being him. My parents even still keep our basement door open because that was his favorite place to be. When we got home, we had to throw out the chair that he slept on every night. I could not look at it anymore, with his indent perfectly in the middle of the top of the chair. It has been almost two months since I have lost him, and there is not a day that goes by that I do not think about him.
A few weeks later during spring break, I went home again. During this break I went away, and when my dad picked me up from the airport he informed me that Lilly had come home. He did not want to tell me because he did not want me to be upset after my relaxing vacation, but it gave me a sense of comfort to know that even though he had passed, his remains were back in our house. It made me feel like he was home again. Being an indoor cat, Lilly had never been outside (except for the few times he has snuck by us coming inside). It felt strange not feeling his presence in my house for those few days, but I feel much better knowing that he is where he belongs, right where his chair in the basement used to be.