farewell to a friend

I've tried to write it a dozen times - in between feeding the kids and sweeping the floor and organizing the freezer, I have tried to write these words to say goodbye.  Instead I find myself writing a laundry list of things I'm going to miss about her.

So here it is, in list form, my sendoff for dearly delightful and oh-so-hairy Phoebe:


-She liked to sleep on my bed, and more specifically on top of my head.  I called it Phoebe Hat and it made me nuts.

-As a kitten she would stand on my chest while I was sleeping and sneeze directly on my face.

-She never took NO for an answer.

-She had terrible breath.

-She had the softest belly fur: white and downy with bits of her pink skin poking out.

-Long tufts of fur grew out between the pads on her paws.  I liked to tug on them until she'd move her paws.

-She followed me into the kitchen every time I walked in there.  She was hoping for treats.

-I used to put my cereal bowl on the floor after I was done eating.  She would come along and stick her paws in the bowl, licking the milk off her paw fur.

-She played something we called Crunchy Hockey with the dried cat crunchie food.  She'd fish a single bit of cat cereal onto the kitchen floor and then bat it across the room - chasing it as fast as she could.

-Her belly fluv swung far and low to the ground.

-She was annoying.  She got into everything.  She shed on every stitch of nice clothing I had.  She had awful hairballs and would vomit on the rugs the minute I washed them. 


And I'm going to miss her.  We're all going to miss her.  Because she was also the sweetest, most long-suffering, best example of unconditional love I've ever known.  An angel.  Covered in fur.