Mittens Romney lay still in his litter box — eyes shut, not breathing — dead.

I woke up Sunday morning to the alarm on my Blackberry. As I tapped the screen to dismiss the alarm, I saw the text from my roommate: "The kitten is dead."

I ran out into the living room to find that the text message was, in fact, the truth. I tapped his little head with the tip of my fingers, maybe he was just in a very deep sleep — he wasn't.

There he was, lifeless, in a pile of his own crap. Perhaps in his dead-in-the-bathroom state, Elvis would have been a more appropriate name for him. But even before Mittens Romney had died, he always slept in his litter box instead of his bed.

I guess, on some level, even Mittens Romney knew he was shit...

Don't get me wrong. I really cared for him, he was adorable. But, in terms of being a cat and doing cat things, he was pretty terrible.

Yes, I know that sounds horrible, but sometimes, even when you care about someone or something, you have to consciously be honest about their flaws. Otherwise, you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

I had gotten Mittens Romney a little more than a week earlier—I saw him in an ad on Craigslist while I was looking for apartment furniture in the “Free Stuff” section. In an almost split second decision, I decided I would take him. There was no resisting his fluffy, dark brown and white coat and green eyes.

"He doesn't really eat much, he just follows me around everywhere. He's so sweet," said the woman who found him. He had been left on her doorstep, separated from his family—the runt of the litter.

I didn't really examine the then nameless kitten, I was just so excited to bring him home. I loaded him into the crate, and brought him back to my apartment. From then on, he was Mittens Romney, the 1 percent kitten. Yes, I was going to spoil him rotten.

I brought him into the living room and opened the door to the crate. Immediately I knew there was something wrong with him. He waddled out slowly. I looked down at him with a huge smile, expecting him to do something cute, something so cute that I could take a video of it on my cell phone and upload it to YouTube — as if to say, "look world! Look how cute my cat is and ignore the fact that I'm lonely."

He just looked up at me and mewed repeatedly. I set up his food and water bowls and carried him over to them, Mittens Romney just kind of gave them a blank stare, turned around, waddled back to where I was standing and started whining again. It seemed he wasn't hungry, which was fine with me, I just wanted to play with him.

I got down on the floor with one of his toys — a knitted mouse with a bell attached to the tail. I shook it and rolled it over to him.

He looked up at me and whined.

Maybe he didn't hear the bell. I picked up the toy and shook it right next to his face, all the while thinking, "wow, if someone was doing this to me, I'd probably be really pissed, too."

He looked up at me and whined. I picked him up and sat down with him in my lap. He finally quieted down and began purring so loudly that I could feel his tiny little body vibrate. He looked chubby because of his long fur, but there really wasn't much to Mittens Romney. He was all bones.

This went on the entire time I had Mittens Romney. I would have to sit with him and hand-feed him. Otherwise, he wouldn't eat because he was afraid I'd leave him.

In addition to his abandonment issues, Mittens Romney didn't really have strong legs to stand on. His hind two legs were "cow-hocked," they pointed outwards, and often fell out from under him—hence the waddling. He couldn't run or jump, so he relied on others to pick him up and move him from platform to platform. So even if he didn't really like the position he was in, he just kind of accepted it. It was sad and pathetic, but not his fault, really. His inability to fight back did, however, make it very easy to give Mittens Romney a bath.

So there he was — dead. I looked down at his tiny, lifeless body, not really knowing what to make of the situation. I thought I had done everything right as a pet owner, I even had an appointed at the vet for him the next day, but I couldn't help but feel guilty.

I wrapped up Mittens Romney in a thin, red Delta Airlines blanket I kept from a flight I took last spring in one hand. In the other hand I brought with me a hammer to dig his grave — I never thought I'd need a shovel when I had moved into my apartment.

I buried Mittens Romney next to a tree, nearby the stairs to my doorstep. While hacking away at the roots, I couldn't help but realize the irony of injuring and impeding on something very alive to mourn the dead.

Mittens Romney was not destined to be a very successful cat, and maybe I had known that from the moment I realized his problems, but chose to ignore it because ... well, he was just so fluffy and cute. He didn't deserve the hand he was dealt, that's for sure. But even in the face of death, life goes on.