The first cat I can remember owning was a stray black-and-white tom cat that I found on Halloween night, 1998. I wanted to keep him, but since he was declawed and fixed, my parents thought it best to try and find his real owners. So we posted a few ads and there were a few close calls, but no one claimed him. We named him Cummins after the deisel engine, because that’s what his purring sounded like.
From day one he was my cat, always sleeping in my bed at night, curling or stretching out on my lap on lazy nights and afternoons. I called him my Fat Furball because he was a lazy, sweet, adorable fat cat who never clawed, bit, or growled, and hissed only once in the two and a half years he was with me; and that was after he had a bad dream.
We spent two and a half great years together, and within those years my family came very close to moving, and Cummins very close to dying from a bladder infection. But I was able to keep him by arguing with my parents and paying for his operation myself. My mom started calling me his Guardian Angel because I always fought so hard for him.
Then one cold February night, Cummins fell extremely ill. His stomach was bloated and he couldn’t move. We took him to the Humane Society to see what was wrong. Turns out it was a bowel infection this time. No one, myself included, could afford to pay for his surgery, and so I did the hardest thing I have ever had to do, and I sent him to a better place. When I did the vet said that I made the right choice, because he was so far gone that he might not have survived surgery
if we could have afforded it.
To this day I blame myself for his death, thinking that there ‘s something that I could have done, but I missed it and I killed him. My parents tried to break me of this, saying that he could have had all these problems before, and that’s why this owners abandoned him. But until I know for sure, I will always feel at fault for his death.
I have another cat now, a little orange stripped kitten named Belfast. A gift from my fiancee for my nineteenth birthday in August 2001, six months after Cummins died. He’s named after the city in Ireland where my family comes from, and he’s the reincarnation of Cummins.
Belfast is just as sweet and kind and lazy as Cummins was, only not as fat. After Cummins died, there was a void inside me that my fiancee saw and filled with Belfast. However, no matter how much room is filled by Belfast, there will always be room left over for my Fat Furball. Cummins, I will always miss you. I know you’re in a better place now, free of pain where you always have a warm lap to curl up on and plenty of food in that fuzzy big belly of yours. I hope you forgive me for whatever harm I may have caused you. I love you baby.
Love Forever,
| Cummins |
| Tara |