Requim for my Pretty Lady

My heart is a little bit broken. My lovely kitty died.
While I was sitting on my porch two years or so ago she came up to me, not shy at all, and got on my lap, demanding to be petted. She had a flea collar on, but no tag, so I fed her and she stayed around. As time progressed I began letting her inside (worried about the highway near our house) and eventually she became more or less an inside cat. She was already litter box trained and never was at all annoying, except in the mornings when she would follow us around to say hello. I was utterly in love with her, she was a great mouser, appeared to win any dubious fights and was generally wonderful to be around. Just the right amount of friendly, but not needy like a dog. I'm a cat person, and generally prefer my animals to be independent. Bobby didn't seem to be very allergic to her and eventually warmed to her constant presence. When we left for our trip we took her and our dog to Bob's parents house, out in the country. Since she'd be an outside cat and had gone to their house before, I didn't think anything of it. Apparently they found her, somehow smashed and in dire straits at some point last week, but there wasn't enough time to get her to the vet before she died. I'm so sad about it, I was trying to keep her safe. Our house is so small and so close to the road that it's not really feasible to get another inside-outside cat. At least she didn't die on the highway, which was one of my main fears. I wish I'd been there, or seen her recently, or helped her die more peacefully, or just kept her inside our house while we were gone. No telling how a cat's mind works, but I sincerely hope she didn't think she was abandoned. I don't really have any concrete thoughts about this, my mind is whirring and I'm trying not to cry at work, but I don't believe in a cat heaven (or a people heaven for that matter) so all I can think of is her lying underground dirty and torn, and dead. I don't think I even have a picture of her. Poor Pretty Lady, whose official name was Matilda. I will certainly miss her and I'm so sad she is gone.