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Milli was my cat. Or, should I say, I was her human. One of my earliest memories of her, as well as her six siblings was when she was a few weeks old at most; I was around 2. I lied down on the floor and just watched as the kittens rushed by me, perhaps to get food, perhaps because they saw me there, I don’t remember. But what I do remember, besides little kittens squirming their way through my doll house, was that, of all the kittens we had, I played with Milli the most. I don’t know what it was she saw in me, but whatever it was, it was enough for her to choose me. And from then on, we had a special sort of connection. Whenever I cried or was sad, she’d always be at my side, nuzzling me and comforting me because she somehow knew, she knew that something was wrong. We’d play with my pink feather boa (and with her playing, it didn’t last too long).
She hated being in something that moved when it wasn’t her. She escaped in an elevator and ripped up all the occupants flying up and down the walls. She’d yowl miserably when in the car with us when we were moving upstate. It took her a while to settle in the new, and much bigger house, but like the rest of us, she settled in rather nicely in the end. By that time, she had really picked the family as a whole, her “harem of humans”. She cared about us just as we cared about her.
Her weight flip flopped every now and again, but she was always as perky as ever, defying the odds every time. I mean, once Raphael had died back in, what was it, ‘01?… every year Dad would say “I don’t think she’ll make it through the winter.” And every year, she’d prove him wrong.
I’m not blind; I saw when her age had started catching up to her. She had lost the energy she used to have; no more tearing through the house at break neck speeds, no more playing with randomly pieces of stuffs with or without anyone. She started sleeping a lot more, and she gradually lost weight. I was inwardly concerned; I mean, we fed her a whole can of cat food a day — half in the morning and half at night — and we always make sure to keep her water dish full. But she was so thin. It was one of the reasons why I got so mad at Derek and Mom when they’d punished her for something she did in the kitchen. She was older than the rest of us; couldn’t you be a little gentler with informing her that she wasn’t supposed to do this and that? I had no problem with gently pushing her off the table or herding her away from food.
She lived 17, 18 years, and yes, that’s a long time for a cat. What hurts me the most was that she was my cat; she picked me first, and I wasn’t even there to say goodbye to her as she took her last breath.
Milli: I love you and I’ll miss you so much.
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