Unfiltered Story #268020

This happens over time. First, I got a kitten when I was ten years old. She was a replacement for the cat I lost a couple of years earlier, who had been a sixth birthday present. The second kitten was a half-Siamese beauty that came from a litter of barn cats that my dad’s secretary owned.

The first time I saw her, our eyes met, and eternal friendship was forged between girl and kitten. She was about eight weeks old, and her eyes changed from blue to green.

When I brought her home, I gave her food and water, and named her Sama. My parents were divorced, and my dad, brother, and I lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a decent complex. Not the best, but it could certainly have been worse.

Over time, the kitten’s fur got darker, and I grew more fond of her. She grew into a beautiful adult cat, and I spoiled her. She always had food and water, Dad cleaned out her litterbox, and I gave her treats and catnip.

But we also had our not-so-fun moments.

Like the night when I fell asleep with gum in my mouth and got it all over her. She was a sight to behold the next day, and a lot of her fur had to be cut off.

The numerous times I tried to give her a bath. Being a cat, she didn’t care for baths. She couldn’t swim well, and her fur was not insulated. The time I accidentally stepped on her tail. She made a racket like you would not believe. The time she jumped on the table and sent my homework flying everywhere.

When I moved in with my mom for the first time, she refused to be put in the carrier and climbed up to the wooden platforms on the ceiling. We had to wait until she got hungry and came down for food.

A few years pass. I move back in with my dad, who has partial custody, and she stays with Mom, who takes better care of her, anyway, and makes me clean out her litterbox.

One day, I’m a junior in high school, and she’s seven years old. Someone had been peeing in the house, but we didn’t know who. I feel a wet spot on my thigh, and I turn around, and she’s peeing on my new clean sheets. She’d never peed outside her litterbox, as far as we knew.

When I tell my mom, she turns to the dog and says “I was blaming you!”
It turns out that Sama had a UTI infection, and had to be put on antibiotics to control her urinating. She does well for a while, but then it returns again and again. Finally, we get it under control.

A few years pass, and I’ve graduated high school. I’m not proud of my high school career, but she helped me get through it, including depression and auditory schizophrenia. I start my second job at a grocery store, meet a boy, and fall in love. I lose my virginity to him.

Then things go south. The boy dumps me, I have a psychotic breakdown and quit my crappy job, and I start living at home. Mom gives me an allowance to get by, even though I still live with her and don’t have to pay anything. I start going to therapy.

Then I stop taking my medications and stop going to therapy. Mom gets mad and throws me out, but the cat stays. Mom goes through a few boyfriends before landing her current boyfriend, who she has been dating for three years.

Sama is still there. She needs insulin and shots for pain and diabetes, and she’s fifteen years old now, and she has begun renal failure. I know I’m going to lose her soon. She’s been my best friend for fifteen years. It happens with all old cats. She’s picked on by our current dogs, especially the German shepherd, but she fights him and will use her teeth if she needs to. She likes going outside and eating treats.

She is my soulmate, my familiar. I don’t know when I’m going to lose her, but I know that when I do, it will be the worst pain I will have ever gone through.