December 21, 2019:

Separation anxiety.

You can't blame her after what's happened. Abandoned as a babe, locked inside their apartment alone with the corpse when her adoptive mother died. Caged in the shelter with hundreds of strays, at last adopted by a man she doesn't know. He loves her, she feels it, she loves him too. She understands her dependence, she's grateful, and she hates to be alone.

So she follows him around the studio, sits on his amps, sits on the desk, sits in his lap. She goes where he goes, as if keeping him in her sight were the only thing preventing him from flying away.

In the end she dies on his lap. She's nearly dead already, her muscle mass is gone, she drags herself by her forward paws and must be lifted into her litter box. Her final gesture of love and gratitude is one last little lick of his finger as he strokes her soft face.

Ten years and he still weeps.

He has separation anxiety, too.