If you have spent much time with me you have heard about Toby already.
If you have not the short version is that Toby was a street urchin that I found hanging by his neck on a fence.
I was told not to expect him to live. (I actually didn’t think he was alive when I found him) He was malnourished, dehydrated and weighed less than a pound. I refused to believe that. I could not believe that the Universe would have let me find him there like that only to let him die on me afterwards.
He needed injections to get fluid into him. He was too weak to stand up or eat – but still ornery enough to try and hiss at anyone who tried to touch him. I had to pry his mouth open and put tuna juice on his tongue to get him to eat. When he was well enough to walk around I had to wash his bum for him after he used the box. (Teigan also helped with the kitten bathing.)
He was my kind of freak.
We bonded. I don’t expect you to understand how much. Suffice it to say that my head was Toby’s favorite place to be – and when he couldn’t swing that, my lap or my pillow would do in a pinch. He waited for me at the door every night after work. He supervised my drawings and homework. He walked through my paint palettes. When I went out of town he would pace the house and sometimes cry trying to figure out where I went. In the very very deepest darkest parts of my depression when I could convince myself that the whole world would be better off without me, I could never convince myself that Toby would be. I knew that I meant as much to him as he did to me and he would be lost without me.
He left last night. Suddenly. He had been sick.. He had two surgeries to remove lumps that turned out to be cancer. I thought we had another year or two together. Turns out that we did not. Paul and I were with him when he took his last breath and I held him all night last night. I am devastated beyond words.
I hope that everyone gets to experience this kind of unconditional love at some point in their life.
 
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