Eighteen years ago, a seven year old girl was praying that God would let her have a kitten. Three weeks ago, a twenty-six year old was praying for God to let that same kitten die.
Mittens' story began long before she was born. I honestly don't remember exactly when it started, but I remember well the many Wednesday nights that followed. Like many little girls, I wanted a kitten. At the time, our family already had Jolie, but she wasn't mine. She was technically the family cat, but no one doubted that she really belonged to my mom. I wanted one that was mine.
And so the prayers began. Every Wednesday night prayer meeting, our church family knew it was coming. Among the other requests on my card, it was always there: that Dad would let me have a kitten. It was explained to me that it wasn't that simple, that cats cost money to feed and take care of. I understood. My request changed that Dad would let me have a kitten and that we would have the money to take care of it.
Months passed. My parents' ministry changed, and the church in Kingman had a farewell dinner for our family. At the end, after being given a monetary gift from the church, Dad made the announcement, "I guess we now have the money for Kristi to get her kitten."
We moved to Tucson, and since we had an extended trip that summer, my parents explained that we couldn't bring home my kitten until after that. That was okay; I could wait a bit longer.
A family with a box of kittens they were giving away showed up at one of my brother's Little League baseball games. I had fun with the kittens; my mom struck up a conversation with the family. She commented that, if it were a few month later, we might take one. Low and behold, they had another expecting mama cat whose kittens would be ready for new homes about the time we returned from our trip. My mom took their phone number. After our trip, she called. There were kittens, and she set up a time for us to go look.
August 31, 2000. There were four kittens. Two were all black; two were black and white. And one stole my heart.
As I held her against my chest, she started purring. I don't doubt I would have taken all four home if I had been allowed, but the choice of which one wasn't hard. I walked out of that house with a black and white kitten on my shoulder and all the joy a little girl's heart could hold.
I called her my early birthday present, for I turned nine less than two weeks later. It took me several days to settle on the name Mittens, and it took several weeks before Jolie would let her anywhere near her without hissing. She became my alarm clock when Mom let the two cats in from the garage in the morning, and my unhelpfully study companion while I did schoolwork. She lived through four moves, four years with me gone at college, my mom's two new kittens after Jolie's death, and thirteen jumps from the top of our fourteen foot staircase.
But she was always my cat, and I was her girl. No one ever doubted that. During college, I would receive phone calls from my mom telling me to "talk to your cat. She's driving me crazy." The sound of my voice through the phone would calm her down, as if she knew that, wherever I was, I was okay. The morning after I arrived home for breaks, she was always happily curled up in bed beside me. When I graduated college and moved in with my brother, she came with me. From that point onward, except for a few brief trips, we were together. Mittens was thirteen by then and gradually started showing her age more and more over the next few years when I moved back in with my parents and then to California.
May 23, 2018. Mittens stopped eating. I didn't even realize it at first. When I went to fill her food dish before bed that night, it was still full from that morning. I didn't think much of it. It wasn't normal, but it had happened before, and she usually ate more overnight than she did during the day. Only, it was still full the next morning. And the morning after.
Over the next week, I watched her deteriorate. Even when I offered her turkey (her favorite meat), she would only eat a few bites before wandering off. That weekend, I gave her canned food. She ate that at first, but that didn't last long either. It became hard for her to walk. She'd had arthritis for a while, but I knew this was something different. She was almost eighteen years old, and I was losing her.
I was leaving on a trip back to Arizona that Thursday and had a list of things to get done before I left. Instead, I was worrying about my kitty. Deep down, I knew it was coming. Tuesday night, I called my mom in tears and said I couldn't leave Mittens like this. The squawky meow she'd had most of her life had become a cry. Her balance was so bad that she could barely stand without tipping over. It hurt her badly enough to move that she wouldn't even fully step into the litter box. I couldn't leave her suffering as she was. As much as I hated it, it was time.
May 30, 2018. I made plans to leave work early. I set up a time for one of my friends from the Ranch to drive us to the vet. And I prayed all day that I would come home to find Mittens already dead. I didn't. Instead, I carefully lifted her into the carrier and sat in the seat beside her as Kathy drove us to the vet.
Mittens died laying beside me on the floor. I wanted her in the place were she had always been the happiest, curled up underneath my arm. We buried her at the Ranch.
That night, as I cried myself to sleep, I asked myself if it was worth it. If I would do it all over again, knowing the heartbreak that I would go through at the end. I didn't hesitate to say yes. I wouldn't trade any of the almost eighteen years I had with Mittens.
I currently have plans to get two kittens before the end of the month. Although I live alone, the house never felt lonely while Mitten was there with me. It has since then. I'm ready for another companion (or two) to share the house, my bed, and my heart. But if I'm honest with myself, I know that no cat is going to replace the bond I shared with Mittens. We grew up together. She was the answer to a young girl's prayer, and she spent a good long life at my side. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.
I love you, Mittens. Always have, always will. There will be other cats, but there will never be another one like you. Thank you for seventeen plus wonderful years of memories.
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