i love grey kittys

Sometime back in 2001 I rescued a kitten from our local Dairy Queen. She was very young, thin, and sick. She was living off of Dairy Queen french fries and was probably going to die if noone gave her a home. I took her into our home and I nursed her back to good health and gave her a home. We named her DQ. She was JC and I's first pet "together." She was "ours" not just mine or his. She lived with my dad and me at our home where JC eventually moved in with us. He helped me take care of her and she loved her new family. When we moved into our own home (which was next door to my dads house) she had a hard time understanding that we no longer lived there, we lived next door. It was okay at the time because my dad still lived there but eventually he sold it and new owners bought the house and DQ had to learn that she couldn't go over there anymore. One night I was looking for her and I found out that she ran in the house next door thinking it was her home still and they just let her stay in there and they fed her and acted like she was just a neighbor visiting. She was a really funny cat and even sometimes she could be a real bitch. haha But I loved her because she was the way she was.
Thursday January 15, 2009 I went to feed DQ and I found that she had passed away in her sleep. She had been sick for a while and I couldn't afford to take her to the vet. So I just babied her every day feeding her warm milk in the morning and at night before she went to bed and I wiped the sleep out of her eye that was coming from her being sick. On Wednesday we decided that if she didn't start getting better we would just have to come up with the money to take her to the vet. JC was off Friday so we figured we'd take her Friday. She didn't make it til then. I'm having a hard time forgiving myself because I think if I would have taken her to the vet when she first got sick maybe she'd be okay. Some people have said "Well you could have took her to the vet, paid all that money, and she still could have passed away." or "You could have paid all that money and then you may have had to put her to sleep and then that would have even been more money." I am glad that if she had to go, she went at her home in her sleep. But it doesn't comfort me any that she is gone. As much as I love grey kitties (thats all i've ever had) I don't think I'll be able to ever have another kitty. Noone will ever replace her. I can't imagine this spring/summer going outside and us doing our usual summer chores in our backyard and DQ not being there.