Thinkin’ About How Much I Love My Cleo Kitty

I sit at the table eating breakfast and I watch Cleo Kitty. She’s in the window basking in the friendship of the sun. She is most content in the sun.

In December she was diagnosed with cancer. It broke our hearts and our heads went to bad places about the outcome but here she is in late March loving life. She plays (using the hallway as a toy mouse playground, chasing ribbons, and chasing humans), she sleeps on her blankets on the bed, she eats quite a bit still, she climbs and explores and checks inventories in our cupboards, she loves getting her tail tugged, she talks quite a bit with us, she purrs a lot, she eats her dinner while we eat ours, she sits in her own chair at the dinner table if she wants, she snuggles, she gets on laps, she loves her wrapping paper, she spends a lot of time taking care of us and she puts up with us obsessively loving her probably way too much. We have been completely in love with her since her “love at first sight” experience with Corey over 11 years ago. (I’m just the extra but she’ll love me too if I’m here…) She is the love of our lives.

And most of all she teaches us how to live our lives and I notice it especially now since she’s been dealing with health problems. She lives in the moment. The Present is what’s important. That is all. Don’t think too far ahead, she’s hungry so get on that. She wants to play RIGHT NOW. She tells us more and more what she needs from us and we do our best to listen. She’s a great communicator. She also has this amazing sense of when I am not feeling well and having a bad chronic illness day. She stays around me. She snuggles and cuddles a lot. If I’m in bed more than usual she gets on the bed and keeps watch over me. I’ll always remember June 2010 when I had hit my health wall and was knocked completely over and was having what I later found out was a major lupus flare. She was there at all times making sure I was ok. She was keeping watch. I spent a lot of time in bed and she make sure to lay up against me and would stay there as long as I was there. Brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.

Thank you Cleo Kitty. You are my bestestestest friend in the whole wide world. I love you and I can only hope that I can be as there for you as you have been for me.