I dreamt last night that I had to evacuate and I sternly told the man, who I think was my boyfriend in the dream, that I would not leave without Ani.
My precious Ani-Banani (my nickname for her). She used to be a fat cat and now she's reduced to this fragile, skeleton with fur. It crushes my heart every time I run my hand down her vertebrae.
She's been having accidents. There are several times I, or my boyfriend, clean up her soft stool from the carpet upstairs. I probably go through a bottle of OxyClean, once every six weeks or so, just cleaning the carpet in the office. It's gross. And sometimes she goes in the path where the door swings open and smooshes it. She did it last night. I was exhausted after waking up at 7:30, working out for two hours, and driving my boyfriend around and helping Kaylani with errands, but without hesitation, I sleepily cleaned up after her.
But I can't be mad at her. She's old. She has health issues. She's pulled out a lot of her fur so she looks even more pathetic. This will probably be her last year of life. And she's been sleeping a lot more than normal.
My boyfriend and I have been watching 'Black Clover' on CrunchyRoll lately. He's already caught up with it, but we introduced me to the series a couple of months ago.
We just got to a major plot twist in the story, Episode 115. We watched a few more episodes and then after my mind exploded with new information and my jotting of notes, I went upstairs to take a shower.
My boyfriend did a couple of things downstairs before joining me, so I saw Ani sleeping like this when I opened the office and I felt the tugs at my heart as I looked down at her. As I headed into the bedroom, I was reminded of my dream that I refused to leave her behind and I spontaneously burst into tears.
She's so delicate and I'm anxious over the grief I know I'm going to feel when she's no longer living. I cried hard for a few minutes and knew Zeke would be coming upstairs to shower, too. I took a few deep breaths and told myself, "He's going to think I'm crying over Black Clover so I better pull myself together."
I started brushing my teeth to assist myself to stop crying and wiped away the tears. My Sonicare toothbrush turned off and I just finished rinsing my mouth when my boyfriend came into the room and asked, "Are you crying?"
I instantly burst into tears again as I cried, "I started thinking about little Ani," and he came over and hugged me and held me close as I wept some more.
"I thought you were crying over the show, but now I get it."
My tears turned into laughter, "I knew you were going to think that so I tried to get myself together, but then you asked me if I was crying."
I don't know how long we have with her. She loves my boyfriend and lays on his chest, just like she lays on mine. This little geriatric kitty that has been with me since I was nineteen years old will leave an enormous amount of grief in my heart and I'm petrified when that time will come.
