Ode to Sweetkins

Where are you? Then, where else would you be? In twelve years, you never strayed. On the bed, curled, you seem in peace. "No, Sweetkins, not yet," I begged. "We only have ten minutes together." Your eyes are open, watching me. I heave a sigh of relief as your chest barely rises and falls. Placing you on my lap, I gently stroke your sable fur.

Sweetkins. How the name suited you, my surrogate child. You were just a few months old, trembling with fear in your new home; away from your mother and siblings. Then came my car accident. Every day and every night, I held you tightly for warmth and comfort. You stopped trembling, knowing you needed the same; blunting and softening my excrutiating pain.


Now, it was your turn. Not once did you complain, the Veterinarian said. What you've been through these last six months. Yes, June; the growth on your neck was discovered. I was
reassured you weren't in pain. I searched your eyes that you might tell me that it was so. You weren't losing weight, your appetite remained the same, and you played, as you had for twelve years, preferring the run under cascading bedsheets--blissfully scampering, clawing, clasping, biting the billow.


How wonderfully simple and carefree your life had been my cool, Bohemian cat. In Spring,
birds' chirps were opera and when they took flight, it was ballet. In Summer, flowers' petals
allured you and Fall's leaves you'd friskily rearrange. But snowflakes were your favorite. You watched them in awe, appreciating the crisp miracles collecting on your fur. Day after day, year after year, the routine never changed. Was heaven yours already?


Your home was in my arms, holding you. But when I remarried, you were nowhere to be found for several days. You sensed something, didn't you? My husband's declaration that if you ruined the furniture, you were out. It was a declaration I couldn't tolerate. Our marriage would end soon. Not because the couch was untouched, nor because of my husband's shameful, relentless hissing at you; not even when my mother-in-law stepped on your tail while she thought no one was watching. But that when they expressed their unkindnesses to you, they did to me as well.


It wasn't your fault we divorced, Sweetkins. And in my arms, you're with me still.



**Written by petra michelle**


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