Requiescat in pace, Kudzu

My dearest, my most beloved Kudzu, may you rest in peace.

May you rest knowing that you were loved to the greatest depths of the human heart. May you rest knowing that you were and are cherished.

May you rest knowing that your constant companionship warmed even the loneliest, the most sorrowful of hours. May you rest knowing that you were light in a dark and sometimes unkind world.

May you rest knowing that your presence brought joy, comfort, happiness, peace. May you rest knowing that you were all things good (even when you were bad).

May you rest knowing that beyond pet, you were family, as much my lifeblood as anything. That you were my very heart.

May you rest, fully restored to your gray fuzzy bellied glory, with no scars or marks or patches to evidence of your illness.

May you rest knowing that you will never have to endure my picture-taking ever again.

May you rest after your long and hard-fought battle. Having been so brave and true, holding on for so long for me, so that I could accept that it was your time.

May you rest knowing that I never wanted you to die, except that one time you ate my blue merino wool J. Crew sweater (and even then, not really).

May you rest, weary traveler, from all those thousands of miles on the highway between here and North Carolina that would have been so much longer without you.

May you rest, knowing that you will never have to be stuck in the car with me in the McDonald's drive-in in Leland, North Carolina while I have a panic attack over the holiday weekend traffic.

May you rest knowing that you will be remembered in repose on the windowsill, on the kitchen towel, under a blanket nestled against my stomach.

May you rest gently purring or making sleepy kitty noises as you slumber. With your snaggletooth hanging out.

May you rest with my gratitude for having never eaten my eyeball as I feared you would.

May you rest having served me well with the greatest devotion and loyalty - no matter what mistakes I made in life.

May you rest from leaping onto the cabinets, the countertops, the bookshelves, the bed with sprightly grace.

May you rest with an endless supply of spider plants whose leaves you may nip to your heart's content.

May you rest from strewing toilet paper from the downstairs bathroom into the kitchen.

May you rest, never to be forgotten.

May you rest, my darling. May you rest from exhaustion, from pain and from this namelessness that has consumed you.

May you rest in the hands of the Heavenly Father who made you.

My dearest, my most beloved Kudzu, may you rest in peace.