My Best Friends

“I miss you my favorite cat mommy”, says my Ella Bella from the heavens above. Ella was my best friend. I lost her this past year. I kind of just started calling her Ella Bella out of the blue.

“Mommy, don’t be sad, you cared and loved me for 12 years!” Ella whispered to me. “Stop the tears!!!” A voice belted those words to me so loudly I can’t hear. Or was it a dream?

Rewind several years:

Ella Bella walks into the bedroom and says this-

“Favorite cat mommy, listen to me… I have been here for many years sharing my home with multiple other cats you say were my brother and sisters but they came and went, one after another in and out, these half siblings of mine.”

Ella was not wrong, having four cats at a time all of the time; Uno passing from a poison somewhere unbeknownst to me, Belle escaping after a boyfriend leaving the door open and never returning, many tell me a fisher cat probably got her. I’m more inclined to go with my own mother’s thoughts that a kind person took her in. Then there was Miss Mini who suddenly couldn’t hold her head up while eating and after spending thousands to keep her alive, she went downhill due to liver function issues the next day and my friend at the time suggested highly I let her go, so I did.

“My most favorite cat mommy in the world, my siblings have come and go, yet here I still am by your side loving you and the one half sibling you leave me with is Marley Moo, who terrorizes me, chases me, thinks she rules the house and controls the crown, so because of that I now have some rules for you,” Ella Bella whimpers ever so lovingly.

When I ask her what the rules are, she says in her sweet voice with those sweet eyes as she bats her eyelashes at me, “grab a pen mommy, time to take notes”.

I quickly take pen n paper and my sweet baby Ella Bella rattles off a list for me-

1. I Ella Bella am to greet my mommy at the top of the stairs every day she comes home and no other kitty is allowed to do so.

2. I Ella Bella am the only kitty allowed to sit on mommy’s lap while she watches tv.

3. I Ella Bella will be the only cat in the house allowed to follow mommy around wherever she goes, even to the bathroom.

4. I Ella Bella am the only kitty allowed outside on the deck when my mommy sits outside n has her coffee or relaxes on her hammock and I promise I will never run away (true story, well these all are true but I had to emphasize this one especially is true).

5. I Ella Bella will curl up next to my mommy each night when she goes to sleep and if any other cat in the house follows me they will be allowed but are not allowed in my personal space near my mommy. The foot of the bed they have to go.

Upon reading the list, even though I felt badly for Marley Moo, my Ella Bella was my very best friend and I couldn’t say no. So this was the ritual for years to come until the day I found her on the floor downstairs not moving. Stiff and cold.

“Mommy, you didn’t remove all of the fleas from me, they attacked me” is all I could hear in my head out of guilt n anguish that my poor baby girl had possibly passed bc after months and months of flea bombs and baths and combing I still found fleas on her body upon her death.

I will never truly know what killed my baby girl, my best friend, but I know she would tell me this if I saw her now…

“My favorite cat mommy, I knew you loved me and I was your favorite because I am the only kitty of the house in 20 years who had a special box made for my burial, candles and flowers put into the ground all around me, and even a sensor light that goes off when you walk up to me… I’m a special kitty and I’m queen bee.”

Truth is all of that did happen, every detail to the end because my very special boyfriend at the time who loved my cats dearly, built her grave site for me along with the lights and candles and box to bury her, it was the most special thing he could do to help me grieve, and soon after that, a mere four weeks ago, he passed away from cancer. I wish I had someone here to honor him in the same way he did her to help me grieve. But Ella Bella is now with my other best friend Ronnie, and both of them are telling me weeks later, “We love you our Jenny Penny, we are sorry we left you, we love you, but please do not let any other kitty and no other man enter our territory, we will be watching you.”