Welcome to Gaia! ::

I just want to say that I feel for you. Kia sounds like she was a very loving and noble friend and companion. I've gone through quite a handful of pets in my 27 years. There are only 3 that have passed on that have taken a small part of them with me. Prince, my parakeet that I had as a child, Chaos, a kitten I saved from a dog and finally my Orion, the kitten that saved my sanity.

The story I'm going to tell you is about Orion.

It was early 2010 and I had just returned from my deployment to Iraq. I was drinking a lot and taking a whole lot of medications. I was in a lot of pain and also just having issues with just dealing with life in general. I was at Fort Polk Louisiana at the time and I left post to go home to my apartment and decided to check out the adoption place nearby. I wasn't sure if I was going to get a pet, it had been years since I owned one as my Chaos vanished after I left for the army in 2006. I still never knew what happened to him. I was looking around and when I looked into the cage of little furballs there she was. I looked at her and she looked at me and I was like "That's the one. I want that one right there." The man opened the cage and handed her to me and I named her Orion.

She went everywhere with me. She was my car cat. She loved going for rides and she was my best friend. Little did I know she was more than just a companion, she was my sanity. She helped me through the meds and through the emotional ups and downs. She was so little when I first brought her home. She could fit in my hands. I loved her. I loved that cat like you would a child.

I had this little red bear. The kind of stuffed animal that had fur that stuck up all over the place. Well, it was hers after I brought her home. She would grab it in her little mouth and attempt to drag it everywhere. She slept with it when I wasn't home and when I was home she'd crawl up into bed with me and sleep in my armpit or on my neck. She was always there.

She grew quickly and I made a couple of trips home to Michigan and always brought her with. She'd be asleep on my lap the whole time or in the passenger seat next to me. She was always close. She was almost like a dog to me. She'd bring me things, or be waiting by the door for me when I got home from work. She made everything better, even when I didn't feel like anything in the world mattered. She was there and she kept me holding on.

Well. A couple of months later I made the most terrible mistake in the world when I decided to date the man that I did. He was someone I knew from highschool, he was in the Army as well. To make a long story short Orion and I moved to Fort Campbell Ky. I was about to leave for Afghanistan and I had already made arrangments for my mom to take Orion while I was gone because I didn't trust her with the guy I was with. And two weeks before I was supposed to take her home to my moms he killed her. I was in a military school so I wasn't allowed to have my phone and when I got out of class I had a voicemail. As I got in the car and listened to it the words that stuck out and still resound in my head are "And oh, by the way. I killed your cat." Out loud I said to myself, "No... No he didn't." But inside I knew. He had killed my baby. I was devastated but I refused to believe it and I refused to allow him to win. I got home and he was sitting on the back porch, drunk as could be and there was my baby. In a bag, in the middle of the back yard. I refused to cry. I wouldn't allow him to know he had just hurt me more than anything.

I went inside and cleaned up the mess she had made in the kitchen when he had broken her neck, brought the b*****d on the back porch some water and then got in my car and drove away and I cried. I called one of his friends and they told me to leave them out of it. I didn't tell my mom, I didn't tell anyone. (this was during a really dark time in my life and he actually almost killed me a week later).

I came back later and he told me to come outside and say my last goodbyes as he buried her outside the bathroom window. I didn't say anything in front of him, I didn't shed a tear but every day since then I will randomly think of her and I will cry. I will cry because I didn't get her to my moms sooner, because I knew how much he hated her and I thought everything was going to be alright.

I now have three cats and a dog. It's just not the same for me though. Zeus, my dog is pretty close and has helped me a lot, but it's still not the same to me. I miss that girl so much and I, to this day, cannot find it in me to forgive myself for what happened to her. It is a guilt and a pain I will carry with me until the day I die.