Rizz's Day

A letter from Catsy

A letter to Catsy’s mommy & daddy.

Dear Mommy & Daddy,

Thank you for the last 17 months. I have never known such love in my entire life. How lucky I am to have had you in my life. I am old and I am weary but I feel very loved. That is something I never had on the streets.

Today I feel so young and healthy again and I wanted you to know that. I learned a lot from you.

Before you saved me, when I was younger, I could keep up with the other street-cats. I fought for my supper, my shelter, my territory and my water.

For a while I fought well. If I got hurt, I healed myself. But as I grew older those rats and mice were harder to catch. The birds got faster and trash can lids were stuck down tighter. I was too slow for the food scraps all the other cats got them.

If I got hurt or in a fight, if I got injured or missed a fence, if I caught a virus or got ticks and worms I just couldn’t seem to shake them. Let’s face it, for a street cat I was old. Much older than my 16 years.

I felt awful. I hurt and my legs and joints were swollen, I had a constant tummy ache. I could barely drag my tired old body around to pick up scraps from the ground. I couldn’t search for water and I was so very tired. I was slowly dying and I knew it. So I prayed to find comfort, to be put out of my misery. That’s when I found you......didn’t I?

I chose you because you weren’t like the other humans I’d met. I knew you would never hurt me or beat me. I chose you because I knew I would have a warm place to sleep. I would have food and water. I would be taken care of. I would be given medicine. I would be loved.

It took a long time for me to adapt because after so long I found it very hard to trust anybody. You were my angels, you saved me twice. You gave me 17 months to settle my score with the world and to help you settle yours by taking in an old beat up cat.

Then, when we both knew it was finally time, you saved me again. You saved me from dying on the street in a gutter or down a drain, cold, hungry and in pain. You showed me what it was like to live like a house-cat and though you think I was distant and untrusting, I was far from that. I didn’t know how to act. I was never shown. So I did the best I could to thank you every chance I got.

Didn’t I let you pet my head. To talk to me without slinking away. To shave my fur, bathe me and hold me close in my final hours.

That’s why I chose you. Don’t think for a minute it was the other way around.

So don’t worry that I was at the vet’s - I had already said my goodbyes to you, I think my last memory was when I was cradled in daddy's lap. After that it gets a bit foggy. I wanted you to know that I passed without pain, warm and comfy and not really in this world…..but the next. Thank you.

Love Catsy