Last night after getting back from the party I made some phone calls and tried disappearing into a book. I was still pretty weepy in spots.

ayse phoned and we had a good talk. I went to sleep after double dosing on Nyquil again (throat scratchy, who'da thunk it) and reading Compline, during which I was thinking that Maya had often been on my lap while doing so. Maggie ended up being confined to quarters.

This morning I, of course, woke up with no lump on the bed, and no purring headbutts/grooming companionship, and with no furry-purry "admiring" me. (Maya did a good line in what cat_herder called the Nancy Reagan look. It was also a specialty of her Poor Fred.) It didn't hurt as much as I thought. I knew she was gone the instant I woke up, and I missed her, but I wasn't weepy. The picture yesterday had reminded ayse of The Queen of the Savanna, and I had been thinking Maya had a lion heart, and the lion heart had just stopped working due to old age.

Talking to ayse also helped me get over the idea that I hadn't said goodbye properly; I really didn't in some of the ways I would have liked (soothing chatter about you're my best pal, and I'll miss you), but 1) I was pretty freaked out when I found her and post-verbal 2) she did move her head and pay attention when I took her on her last trip Outside (which she loved) and 3) she knows I loved her.

I am still so glad that it was quick. Forty-eight hours before her death, I ended up confining her to the office becuase I was home sick, needed a nap, and she was sitting on me (she weighed less than five pounds at her death, but still) and headbutting me as I was trying to sleep. Twenty-four hours before her death she was wrasslin' with the vet staff. Scrappy to the end *grin*.