I got Delilah from a breeder in Florida. I drove to Florida to get her. She was just a kitten. She came into my life right when I was flying high - everything was going great for me. I had a great job, a great relationship, plenty of free time, and I spent my life surrounded by friends and family. And Delilah became the cherry on top of that cake. A couple years after that, my life went into free fall. A failing economy cost me my great job, all my savings. My relationship collapsed. As things got harder, and the going got tough, I discovered that I lot of the people I thought I could rely on were unreliable. I was treading water, and I began to feel like a complete loser. But despite all of that, despite everything I lost, there was one thing that never changed: my beautiful Delilah was there, loving me unconditionally. She became the glue that held my sanity together. During the eight rockiest years of my life, I could always count on my beautiful kitty. No matter how dark things got, she was there for me. She was so cuddly. She would always cuddle in my lap and hold my arm like it was a stuffed animal, and curl up in my arms in bed while I slept. Our nap times were some of her favorite times, and she would always come running for them. She also loved her cat dancer and laser pointer. When she was a kitten, she also loved to play fetch with her crinkle ball - I would lay in bed at night and throw it through the bedroom door, into the living room, and she would leap off the bed and run into the living room, grab it, walk triumphantly back into the bedroom, hop onto the bed, stand on my chest, and drop it on my face. Then we would do it again! She loved to sit on the window sill when the window was open and listen to the birds outside, and though she was always an indoor cat she would come out on the porch with me and sit under my feet while I read or wrote on my patio, or just enjoyed the night air. Whenever I came home from work, I would call out, "Dilly!" (which was my nickname for her) and she would come running down the hall, meowing. She would headbutt my leg, or fall down at my feet and roll onto her back so I could tickle her belly. And then she would run into the kitchen and stand by the cupboard door, waiting for a treat, or run into the bedroom to stand by the closet door where I kept her toys. When she was dying in the vet, and I didn't know what to do to help her, all I could do was say to her over and over, "Please don't go, I don't know what to do, I need you, tell me what I need to do," and the doctor kept trying to tell me humane euthenasia, but I kept saying, "But I can't kill my kitty." And I kept telling Delilah I couldn't handle it, I couldn't live with killing her. They had sedated her, and she was so weak. And all I could think about as she was dozing from the sedative was how our naps were always so special, and how she had always come to me when it was time for me to nap, and so I decided it was time for me to do the same for her. I crawled up onto the little pet examination table in front of everybody and I laid down beside her. And despite how weak she was, she feebly repositioned herself exactly the same way she always did when it was time for us to sleep together, and she laid her head on my hands like a pillow - just like she would always nudge my hands into doing when we cuddled. And I held her like that for a couple minutes, and then all of a sudden she rolled over and looked at me, and she meowed three little meows. Then she slowly laid her head back down on my hands and - looking into my eyes - stopped breathing. My kitty died of congestive heart failure, and a little part of my looks back and thinks that maybe if I had played with her more, or given her more attention, she would still be here. As my life turned upside down, I had to spend more hours each day away from home and working than I had when I first got her, and I feel like she didn't understand that this increased away time was necessary, that maybe somehow she thought I was spending less time with her because I didn't love her anymore and not because I had to put in more hours at work, and that she died of a broken heart. I remember all the time we spent together though, and logically I know what I feel makes no sense, but I just don't think I will ever be able to stop blaming myself. And then I think of the occasional times when I would come home overwhelmed and stressed and she would want to play, but instead of getting her toy out of the closet or a treat out of the pantry when she waited expectantly as always, I would think, "I can't right now, I will later," and would take care of work or chores first instead, or get settled in and wound down for the night first, and my memory of these rare moments just reinforces my heartache and self judgment. Sure, we would still have those times together, but would it have been so hard for me to do it right that very moment, every time, when she was expecting it, instead of making her wait, perhaps feeling crestfallen or momentarily confused and sad because she had already waited all day for me to come walking through that door to initiate that special time? Every moment when something like this happened haunts me now, and if she was here now I would never let even one such instance go by where I didn't pull out her toy and give her as much joy and play as she wants.

I love her. And I miss her. And I still need her. And I would give up anything to have her back.