Milo
We let him outside to go hunt and get some fresh air, and he was gone longer than usual...so we put a can of tuna outside our door to see if he would come to get it. We called his name repeatedly, but we did not hear him meow or see him trotting down the street, it was then we knew something had been terribly wrong.
We went back inside, constantly checking the opened tuna can through the window. "Is he gonna be okay, momma?" I said every now and then, worried that I'd never see my best friend again. She would cradle me in her arms and I knew that I wasn't going to see him again, as soon as we all lost hope, someone had emitted a low pop that was barely audible against the sound of my family sobbing.
I didn't know what was happening, did he come home? Were they sobbing tears of joy? I heard a scratchy meow coming from the back of my house, he was in my backyard. I looked through the back window and saw him lying on a tall stump near the window. He meowed at me again and then I saw something that made my heart sink, there was an open wound on his hindquarters and he looked at me through painful eyes. My family was confused...was the low pop...a gun?
The next day we found that Milo couldn't walk, we had rushed him to the vet and they said that he was paralyzed and wouldn't be able to walk on his own again. I was heartbroken, I had gotten him as a kitten from my Aunt, I remember her handing him to me, I looked through his tiny little eyes and I knew he was the kitten for me, he was a bundle of joy, pouncing everywhere and pawing at everything he didn't quite understand yet, and I was looking through the same eyes then, but he was different, he was the sweetest cat ever, he would rub up on my legs, purr when I would scratch his back, but then I realized he couldn't walk or stand up on his own.
He was my only friend...I would sleep with him at night, feed him, play with him...he was my sweetie. He always will be. About a year later he had become very skinny, he had an ear infection, and his back legs were swollen. My mom and I took him back to the vet and they said he had a 10% chance of surviving.
My mom went to talk with the vet in a small white room. A few minutes after, she came to get me. She brought me in the room and Milo was on a white table, his eyes filled with pain...I knew he was crying for help, begging to be the kitten he was before. The vet stuck a needle in him and his eyes filled with tears, he looked at me for the last time and meowed, I knew he was gone. I knew I was alone. I knew...it was the last time I would see him. I held myself in my room for weeks, I refused to eat or drink. I would've rather died than experience loosing my only friend.
I'll never forget you, Milo. I'll never forget you...friend.
The person that shot him was a mentally ill kid that shot animals that weren't accompanied by their owners. Apparently, the HOA allowed him to do this as he was not stopped from doing it. It was illegal, but we didn't have any local cops and our neighborhood wasn't the greatest. We moved a few times since then, but we recently moved relatively close to where we were when Milo was shot. There's a feral cat that comes to my house often, and I'm trying not to get too attached to him because the same thing could happen again.
Milo was always there to comfort me.
When I'd cry, he would come and lick my face with his rough tongue and rub against my back and everything would be OK.
When I was going through hard times, he would purr and look up into my eyes and everything would be OK.
When I hated my life and questioned why nobody loved me, I knew he did and everything would be OK
When I didn't have a friend...he was there...and everything would be OK.
When he died, I had memories of him burrito'd in a blanket lying next to me, that day he brought home a bluejay and hid it under my bed, those days when he would always comfort me and be there for me. That day when he looked at me for the last time and said Goodbye.
Thank you, Korifea, for drawing this <3
