When I first saw you, you were a very small stray kitten hiding under the couch on the screened porch where the neighbors had been feeding our cats while we were away the Christmas following my father’s death. You braved the other cats obvious displeasure to grab bites of food when they weren’t looking. I loved your survivor’s spirit even then and named you Molly after the “Unsinkable Molly Brown” because you wouldn’t give up despite neither the other cats nor my mother wanting a kitten. And what a survivor you turned out to be. You were with me 21 years
through many transitions.
Other pets and even people came and went during that time but you were always there as I moved from youth to middle age with all the life transitions that includes. I still miss you because you were the last living link to my past, because you were always loyal and forgiving, and because you were the last pet I will have that was truly mine as the cats who are with us now, as much as I love them, are family pets. It might be selfish, but I miss being the most important
thing in some things world.