Slate

We all grieve in different ways...our boy with a pencil and pen...

 ...our girl with words.

Slumber 

It does not matter if you are prepared,

no times enough to stop the choke, the tears. 

I guess the streaks just prove you really cared,

and loved your cat through seventeen great years. 

There never was a headbutt of such love

than those that we received from our gray cat. 

I never tired of Dad's texts theirof

and to this day I'm glad that Mom went back:

Once we had brought his brothers to our home

Mom looked at us and got back in the car,

and sped right back so he could not far roam,

to claim the slate-gray kitten from afar. 

The years to come will never recreate

another friend as wonderful as Slate. 

We brought him back home and cried.
~d