I remember the day she became a part of our family. It was a Friday, everyone was assembled in the gym at Bayview Elementry School, singing the school song, and doing the weekly prize draws when the routine was disrupted by the loudest YOWL that anyone had ever heard. So many confused faces glancing around for the source of that sound, yet none could be found. A tiny blond woman (barely 5 ft in height) in the back of where the parents waited, shifted uncomfortably.
When the assembly got out, me and my sister ran over to our mom, and in her arms, tucked away was the tiniest kitten we'd ever seen. She was about the size of a newborn kitted, except her head, which was about the size of a kitten you'd see in a pet store. Apparently, the local pet store had a man come in with a box of kittens. He told them that either they take the kittens or he's throwing them in the dumpster. So they took the box of kittens, and in that box, was a bunch of weaned kittens, but in the very bottom was this tiny black thing...so malnourished and weak.
My Mom had gone into the store on her usually browsing, not looking for anything but just enjoying all the baby animals, when she first saw the tiny thing in the corner of the display. We didn't need any more animals, we already had a cat, dog and turtle, along with a tank of fish. Twice more my mom went to the pet store to star at the tiny thing in the corner, the 3rd time the worker there asked my mom if she wanted to have the black kitten for free, it was Friday, and obviously not going to survive the weekend in the pet store...So, my mom took her.
For weeks she stayed at home in her house coat with a dropper of milk, nursing this tiny yet exceedingly loud kitten. she was so small she couldn't even climb into her pie pan litter box! Yet through perseverance, my mother nursed her to health. This tiny kitten we named "Pixie". She had an appetite on her that would put professional's to shame. This thing would eat anything and everything, and if you didn't share your food with her, well, she'd just jump up ant take what she wanted!
For some reason we could not fathom, she decided to adopt me as her person. Truth be told I wasn't the nicest kid to animals, rather rough and sometimes down right mean. But she loved me all the same and bite me when I got to rough and taught me how to be nice to animals. I still have scars on my arms from her. Every night she'd sleep in my room, on my bed, resting in that little curve behind my knee's, purring away.
We went through so much together, she was always there for my to cry on when life got me to down, always bitting my ear when I slept in to long and the alarms annoyed her, and always beside me whenever I ate my food. She probably ate more people food then cat food, and thrived off of it. Heck she was even addicted to Chocolate, yeah! She loved that stuff and not once did she ever get sick from it, or anything...iron stomache that one!!!
But...Cats do not live as long as people do, and eventually that "energizer bunny" of a cat that kept going and going long after many other pets had come and gone, well...eyes full of fire and life, yet her body gave out. She went so suddenly from leaping up on furniture and stealing food from Kayla's plate, to just waking up one day and not being able to walk...I could see her trying so hard to walk, those bright alert eyes so full of fire...I spent that last night with her, cuddling together on the couch, all night just petting her...and then, I had to make that call...the one to the vet.
I really thought that she would just fall asleep one day and not wake up...gods that cat could sleep so deeply that you could lift her up and she wouldn't even twitch, then suddenly she's yawn and scare the crap outa me because I could have sworn she was dead. I really thought she would just fall asleep and pass on that way.
But she was a fighter, even when her body failed she still fought to live...
She rests now, in the garden of my Mother-in-law, next to where her brother Angel boys is buried. She outlived them all...the dogs, the cats, the turtle, the fish, the bunny...every pet we'd gotten since she came to live with us...That tiny sickly almost dead malnourished kitten out lived them all. Now she's joined them.
Losing a pretty that feels more like a family member is never easy. May Pixie RIP and you guys forever hold her in your hearts. 
Grieve, and then dwell on all the wonderful happy memories as the pain will pass in time.
