Thank You Ma'am: Saying goodbye to Tallulah

Yesterday was such a hard day. Yesterday morning, we lost our sweet Tallulah kitty. And then I cried. All. Day. Long. I've only cried twice today, so that's something of an improvement.

Lula transitioned from being an inside kitty to a porch kitty because Lula had a hard time restricting herself to the litterbox, something that started a few years ago when I lived in Columbia with her. It just got worse and worse, and last summer, it got to the point that nothing I did could solve the problem. Vet visits, new litter, Feliway...I tried so hard. Eventually, we had to rip up all the carpet and subflooring in our hallway. When she moved on to my bathroom sink, I just didn't know what else to do.

She stayed on our screened porch and started going outside when the dogs would. I had tried keeping her confined but all the inappropriate peeing just started to be all over my wooden porch. When she got to go out, it stopped.

Lula was responsible for the demise of a few birds and chipmunks (and a large rat she found somewhere on the day before our wedding). She and Peggy Sue used to tag team small animals they found in the bushes and flower beds.

She got really attached to my neighbor across the way, so much so that the neighbor called me to introduce herself and tell me that if I was ever looking for Lula, she was probably sleeping on her porch. Lula knew the times that I'd get home, and she knew the times the neighbor would get home and she'd be over in the correct place, waiting for us.

In the last month or two though, I could tell her arthritis was progressing and she was moving a lot slower. I hadn't seen her stalking birds much or rustling chipmunks out of the hostas. She'd eat, sleep in the chair on the porch and shuffle over to the neighbor's house for more of the same.

Yesterday morning after PB left for work, I heard the garage door open so I called him to make sure it wasn't a stranger danger because I couldn't imagine why he was back. He wasn't going to tell me about Lula, but he ended up telling me and I sobbed until it was time for me to get up and go to work.

He found her on my neighbor's street, hit by a car. She used to be really good about watching for traffic, but I just don't think she was able to move fast enough anymore. Oh goodness, here I go crying about it again.

We buried her in a corner of the yard yesterday and I bought a hot pink rose bush to put over her. I feel so, so terrible about it. Tallulah would have been 13 in October - I've had her since I was 12, half my life. She was a big, pretty, but weird cat who loved to be rubbed under the chin and meowed in her own strange little way. We'll miss you, Lula.

Lula, back when she lived at my parents' house.

Then we moved to Columbia together when I started law school. She was my buddy on a lot of rough nights when I hated that house and all of its palmetto bugs and the thought of getting up and going to class the next day.