Thanks for your comments, guys. Mr. Bill, I know that I have to be grateful that she was one companion whom I didn't have to have put down. She died peacefully in her sleep.

Cat, yes, I know that she knew that I loved her. Her mother was with me when she got out in answer to the other "call of nature," returning right afterwards. (I swore at the time that she had a smirk on her face.) So she literally spent her entire life with me. Two days after her birth, a disease killed her littermate and caused her to lose one eye. I can still see her running away from me as a kitten when I had to apply drops 3x/day in attempt to save it . At the age of six months, though, she realized that I was her friend, and would come to me for comfort throughout the long months of discomfort until the eye could be removed.

I already have several other cats whom I've rescued from the street. Even at her advanced age, though, Cloud terrified them all and showed them who was boss in that house! I just don't think that I'll ever have the relationship with them that I did with her.