To Mona, With Love

Dear Mona,

Thank you for being such a great cat. I know I complained about you throwing up and leaving behind your cat hair all over the house, but your presence is really missed. You never complained about Sophia. In particular, I remember the pic below of Sophia flying to you and she proceeded to spit up on you. You were a good sport and just ran away. No hissing.

If Sophia ever got too close, you'd just run and hide. You never hissed or scratched.

You were very patient!

It was better as long as one of us was petting you while Sophia tried to interact. It's probably because we adopted you from the animal shelter on Jan. 2, 1999. And we didn't have Sophia until June 18, 2008. You do the math! That's a LONG time to have the run of the house and then be suddenly bombarded with a baby.

We saw way more of you before Sophia became a walker and was more self contained.

Did I say patient??? You put up with a lot. Not just Sophia, but with us too. Once Sophia got here, we totally slacked on giving you our full attention. There were days where your food and drink bowls went empty....when your litter box went unscooped. But through it all, you never complained or retaliated. 

Of course, there were some good things about us having Sophia. More places for you to sleep in.

So thank you for 13 years (almost...didn't quite make it), of companionship and love. 

(When we left on Tues. evening to see Uncle B and Aunt C, Mona was fine. She'd exhibited no signs of distress. She was playful. She was eating and drinking. When we got back home that night (we were gone maybe 4 hours), she had vomited and pooped in the living room and she was sitting near the couch....even with Sophia in the room (usually she'd run away). After Sophia started to check on her, Mona made her way to a corner Sophia couldn't get in. We knew she wasn't feeling well then. Eventually, after we put Sophia to bed, we got her to come out and sleep on a bed of Pillow Pets beside the couch. I decided to sleep on  the couch in case she needed me during the night. She did not end up needing me during the night...in fact she didn't move a muscle. What a long night, just hoping she'd make it through the night. Once we got her to the vet the next day, she was in such bad shape that they tried to direct us to an ER facility but in between them informing us and calling to see if they could see her immediately, she started having seizures. The Dr's there said they didn't think she'd make it to the ER facility. So we opted to have her put down. They said her body temp was so low that there was pretty much no way she could recover. I think for me, it's just shocking how quickly things can change. One minute you have a cat, the next minute she's on death's door step.)

All of this has shown me how much we need to treasure all the people and animals around us, everyday. So there are no regrets or words left unspoken. Everyone matters and we need to treasure them more, so that while they are with us, they feel that they matter. That they are important. Because everyone matters. 

We love you Mona! And you will be missed!

January 2, 1999-December 28, 2011

We adopted you on January 2nd but they estimated you were already a year old. So you were probably closer to 14 when you died.