Grieving

It’s weird to be grieving
The loss of a cat I never liked;
The only cat to whom I ever was allergic;
Who cried incessantly until I picked her up;
Who was only ever happy on my lap...

The scent of her urine (so annoying)
Stayed embedded in her fur,
And my office often reeked of it.
Her constant shedding clogged my keyboard
And gummed up my mouse,
so I confess I was grateful
when the masses in her lungs
(not to mention her arthritis and her asthma,
her irritable bowel and the sores in her mouth)
Grew too significant to be ignored
And we could finally let her go,

And yet...

Something in me is saddened by her loss.
Some part of me is grieving,
Not just guilty,
But regretting that I never loved enough,
And realizing
That all the times I told her that I loved her,
When she rolled onto her back
And demanded that I rub
The soft fur of her belly,
It was true.