My sweet Nova,

We've been through a lot together, haven't we? You were the first new face we welcomed into our apartment after losing our house, and you made the tiny place feel more like a home than anywhere else I've stayed.

Even through my darkest times, when I was deep in depression and couldn't help but wish my life away, you helped keep me grounded. My thoughts always circled back to, "If I die, will Nova think I abandoned him? Will he mourn for me just like I would him?" Seeing how you follow me around the house so close I almost trip over you daily, I think you'd miss me.

I'm looking at you right now, asleep in your hammock, and I know you aren't yourself. The doctors say your body is attacking it's own red blood cells, they told us you might not make it through the night. Well, you did, because we all know how stubborn you are. I slept on the kitchen floor with you because that's where you wanted to lay; you wouldn't let us move you to a bed. That's the last time I'll ever fall asleep with you by my side.

I'm sorry there isn't more we can do. We could get you those blood transfusions, but they would only prolong the inevitable, and you'd suffer because of it. What kind of life would that be, spending half your life at the hospital and still not being able to play and run like you want to?

I wish "I love you" was enough to save you, that it was some magic spell that would shove all the life back into your body so we could have more time, but it isn't. I can cry and wish all I want, but I'm not special, because death is the only experience all living things share. You proved just how alive you are when you jumped up on the shelf and knocked it right down onto my head. That hurt a lot, you know.

I feel like I've known you for longer that you've been alive. Four years doesn't seem like a lot, but you made it feel like a lifetime. In those four years, you changed me. Made me softer. I know when you're gone, when we leave the emergency center without you this evening, nothing's going to feel real. You'll still be with us, they say they have memorial boxes we can carry you in, but it won't be YOU. You aren't just the fur and the bones holding you together, you're the love and mischief and everything else you showed us. I don't want to imagine you without that.

I love you, Nova. You're my little buddy. I know we had some unsavory nicknames for you, and I'm sure you had your fair share of them for us too, but we turned all of those "impolite" words into terms of endearment. You made the boring life of an introverted, anxious highschool student something worthwhile. I'm confident in saying you're the funniest, most adoring cat I'll ever get to meet. Whatever afterlife there is better be kinder to you than our world was, because if it isn't, I'm tearing it all down to make a new one just for us when we meet again.

Love always,

Best Friend