My kitten is gone

My kitten is dead.

Marnie was my favorite kitten, my muse, my best bed-partner, my best playmate.

She died today. She was eight years old.

Today, before I knew she was gone, I found myself looking at some pictures on my PSP, including one of her when she was barely six weeks old, a tiny foundling at a shelter we used to support in West Virginia. One summer day in 1998, someone dropped her off in a hiking-boot box and sped away, and I heard her and went out on the porch to find a box with a tiny kitten inside, not even six inches long. She was my kitten from that instant on. She pooped on me the first time I picked her up, so I knew we were meant for each other.

Other pictures I found showed up exploring out in the yard, playing with the camera lens, and sleeping next to Gus at the top of the stairs. I have literally hundreds of pictures of her, probably miles of videotape as she grew up into a goofy but soulful kitten of some size and weight. She knew she and I had a special connection and she took advantage of it every instant she could. If she was asleep, all I ever had to say was, "you kitten!" and her tail would flick once, without her even waking up. She heard me and just acknowledged, "yes, I am!"

She was always perfectly safe with me and I could carry her around all day like a football if I wanted, with her purring and flicking her tail around and stretching her toes.

I don't know what happened. I found her on the kitchen floor, lying on her side, staring out into nothing. Whatever took her took her suddenly. I can only hope she wasn't scared. She was never scared of anything, but then again, if she was, she always had me to take care of her. Somehow, this time I wasn't there. She left the world on her own, without me telling her what a good kitten she was, without me there to make the way easier. Without a chance for us to say goodbye the way we met: just the two of us.

It's raining outside. Raining hard. I know that I will have to bundle her up and take her outside to join Tess, Boris, Harry, Data and Mao, as well as all the other cats who sleep out under the twin cherry trees overlooking the valley. But I don't want to take her out there just yet. For now, she's still my kitten and I can't give her up to the earth for a little while yet.

Every time I lose one of them, a little piece of me dies with them. There are fourteen of us now, and I wonder how many little pieces of me I have left. I know I will lose them all some day, but I thought Marnie and I would be among the last to go, watching sadly as we said goodbye to our best friends. Now she's gone, and I am not sure who I will go through the years with.

I'm sorry, Marnie. You should have had so much more time to be my kitten.

My kitten, my kitten.