My dearest Sylvester, This is not the first letter that I have written you, nor will it be the last. It will, however, be the only one I dare to share. Baby, do you remember that cold October evening when you and I first met? You were so thin, little man, you were as thin as a Halloween decoration. 6 pounds is such a terribly misleading weight and yet I couldn’t be happier the vets confused you for being a 2-year-old. I’ll never know exactly how old you were when you came to me but the waxy build-up around your claws means you couldn’t have been younger than 8. You weren’t meant for me. You were meant for my sister. They brought you home to help treat her depression but when you wouldn’t come out from under her bed for weeks she decided she didn’t want you. Pain isn’t a contest. The pain of one person isn’t more important than the pain of another. It can be hard sometimes, though, since people react to pain so differently. She reacted to hers by cutting into herself and I reacted to mine by withdrawing from the world around me and shutting my mouth. That must have been why you and I hit it off so well. You always had trust issues. You didn’t know how to ask for help and became so terribly despondent. But I didn’t set out with the intention of fixing you. You didn’t need fixing. All you needed, and all I wanted for you, was to feel safe. You’d been shut in my room for three months before the day you hopped up onto the bed. Your big, beautiful green eyes locked with mine for an instant but it was your world and I was just happy to be a part of it. I’d never expected you to love me. There was a quiet, but patient demand in your eyes that made me think you wanted me to move. I remember it so distinctly because I was so tired that day. I scooted to the side for you, expecting you to huff and flick your tail at me, telling me to “sod off!” I still remember the burn of holding my breath the very first time you plopped down next to me, against my hip, and put your paws in my hand. For a while, the rest of the family wanted to return you, wanted to give you up because they’d brought back two kittens for my sister and three was just too many. I refused and reasoned with them, reminded them that we don’t give up on pets. You’d become a bit fat then, overeating because there wasn’t yet enough trust in the regularity of food availability, and I’d put us both on a diet and you were under my protection even if I had to fist fight John Cena about it. Because, baby, it was your world and I was just happy to be a part of it. It took a year for you to feel comfortable enough to trust me and I’ve never felt so privileged, or so important. Sly-sly, my black and white little man, I’d have spent the rest of my life doting on you without your love and I’d spend thousands more with it. When I started you on subcutaneous fluids biweekly, to treat your failing kidneys, I was unprofessionally advised to let you go. But I looked at you and knew you weren’t ready, saw the life in your eyes and heard the demand in your voice. Overcoming my fear of needles was so easy to do because it was for you. Oh, the lengths I had to go to for your medications, boy! Reducing my food budget, my transportation fees, biking four miles through snow and sleet to pick it up for you. Hours spent arguing with my mother and my father when they finally caught wind of how much went towards your needs. You had special wet food only manufactured in four flavors by two companies, $2.85 a can and a whole lot of bribing from yours truly when you grew tired of the taste. You had 900 ccs of subcutaneous fluids and 200 ccs of oral lactulose fluids a month. But everything I sacrificed for you wasn’t half as important to me as you and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. It was your world and I was just happy to be a part of it. Everything I ever did, every sacrifice I ever made, I made for you. But the hardest thing to do for you was to let you go. You took a real big piece of me when you left, my love, and I will never be the same. I’m happy you did, though, because if you took so much with you, you must have needed it more than me. I held you in my arms, tried so hard to be gentle as I clutched your little paws with one hand and pressed my face into your fur and told the doctor to “just do it” because I knew I’d never be ready to let go. Painlessly, peacefully, you moved on ahead, to a place I could not follow. You left me there wailing so hard I could barely breath, so dizzy I could barely stand, and so upset I almost threw up. Never in my life have I ever felt so afraid of grief. Thank you. Thank you for loving me the way you did. Thank you for giving me a reason to step off the railing, for putting the pills back in the bottle, for putting the knife down. Thank you for giving me a reason to come home. Thank you for loving me enough to give me so much happiness and for giving me the promise of a more in the future. Oh baby, my green-eyed little man, I see you out of the corner of my eye all the time. Sometimes I can still hear you purring, see you plodding along just as always, but when I look you’re never really there. Kiki is so different from you, there is no mistake she is a different cat entirely. But she’s a tuxedo, just like you, and sometimes she does things so distinct to you I have to stop and take a few seconds. That’s right, you don’t know much about Kiki, do you? Well, when I first found her she was as thin as a Halloween decoration… Loving you always, Mom