RIP Lion Kitty

The sweetest, best kitty ever, Lion Kitty has gone to meet her maker and I miss her.  I don't know where she came from--perhaps someone tossed her out in the park. I was convinced she had been somebody's cat before.
For most of the time here she lived outside and with such a fur coat was well able for it, but most of last winter she stayed in the house, as she was clearly getting older. Often, I thought of how wretched I would be when she passed on, and I am. She was an extraordinary animal who did her very best to keep out of people's way. She was afraid of most people, so I always figured

somebody had treated her badly, which was something I could never understand. She never walked on the tables or the counters, she only sat on the chairs I told her she could sit on.
I never saw her play, though this spring, after Jeff M. plowed the garden, I looked out the kitchen window and she was running back and forth the length of the garden, rolling in the new-plowed loam, having the time of her life.  It looked like so much fun, I didn't yell at her for doing it. Her other favorite thing was sitting with me in the chair at night watching TV.  I  always
thought then how much I'd miss her.

Which is just how much I do miss her.
It was such a good, good summer and one of my fondest dreams has been realized, but I am heart- broken missing the sweetest kitty, who graced my life for eight or ten years, because when she showed up, starving, wretched, hair coming out in clumps, who would have ever thought Lion would be the best kitty ever.
Forever, my Lion.