Straight From the Heart...

Yesterday, I shared with you the loss of my cat Runtee and how it hit me so very hard.

I wrote the story to share with you how much animals and pets mean to me. Thousands of you (really thousands) reached out and said how sorry you were and shared stories of you losing a pet.

I can’t respond to all of you, because first of all, I will run out of tears. But, I have read each and every text, email and DM and I am truly touched by your words.

There are some people that will say, “It’s just a cat.”

I feel for those people, because they have no idea what it is like to be unconditionally loved. Let’s be honest, you can have the greatest spouse in the world and the most awesome kids. But, there is times when they are so mad at you, they might even say, “I hate you.”

Of course, it’s just the heat of the moment and they really don’t hate you, but with a pet, no matter what, they love you 24/7/365. The love is unconditional and it is the greatest love there is.

Like I said, Runt showed her love all the time. She was first one into bed each and every night and plopped down right next to me and stayed there all night long, never getting up until I did.

What makes losing Runt so hard is she was still relatively young. The guess was about 13 years, but since she was born in the wild, we will never know for sure.

The cats I have are offspring of Runtee. 3 cats from two different litters.

The other cat I have is Angel.

Angel made the move with me from NY to Florida and she is now over 18 years old.

While Runt slept beside me each night, Angel sleeps on top of me. She sleeps on either my chest or my back depending on which way I am laying down.

When I get up and start banging out FTVLive, Angel is with me each and every morning (the picture is from just now, while I am writing this story). FTVLive has been updated for over a thousand days straight and Angel has been right next to me for everyone of those days. Most often she sits right next to the keyboard (or on the keyboard) and when she is tired, she moves onto my lap and goes to sleep.

Angel watching over FTVLive

As she has gotten older, she is not able to jump up on my desk anymore, so I have made it so she can jump up on a box and then onto the desk. I have set up the house, so she can still get where she wants to go.

Angel is still healthy, but I know my time with her grows shorter and shorter each day. I have kind of been preparing myself for the day that Angel will no longer be here, helping to update FTVLive.

I did not expect Runtee to go so soon. Cancer and liver failure took Runt way too soon and it broke my heart. Knowing I’m going to have to go through this again with Angel is killing me.

It makes you question why you own pets in the first place?

But then you feel that unconditional love and you know that while you have made their life a bit better, they made your life a whole hell of a lot better.

“Just a cat” you say, no my friend, she was my life.

And while right now, I can’t get the the thought of how she died out of my mind. I know one day, I will remember how she lived, how she DID live.

Thanks to everyone for sharing you thoughts, it means a lot, but it was never my plan. I just wanted to share with you the life of one awesome cat that made my life that much better.

FTVLive’s person of the year, Morgan Kolkmeyer once said that everyone says they have the best dog in the world and everyone of those people are right.

The same goes for cats and I just lost a very special one.

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