Gifts From Friends

Something wonderful happened yesterday.

A box arrived for MomKatt, which she discovered waiting for her on the front porch when she got home from work.  She opened it to find:

She read the card first, and was in tears at the beautiful, loving words written within.

Then she opened each of the four tissue-wrapped packages and found: 

These are angel kitties, made by our furriend, Laura Strickland of The Cat In The Clover, who has an etsy shop & makes wonderful things like this.  They represent four of the five of my siblings that are now at The Bridge enjoying their Tenth Inning - Feisal, Livia, Kukla & Torrie - and were sent from Miz Amy, who is mom to Feisal's wife, the lovely black Zilla (whom y'all don't know but, trust me, this was one gorgeous black kitty, who just recently made the trip to The Bridge herself).  I guess Miz Amy initially wanted to honor Livia, then figured she'd "catch MomKatt up" on the others who had gone before her. 

MomKatt was in tears as she opened each little package.  Each kitty wears a heart, all made from different materials, and Miz Amy said in the card that she got Miz Laura to make each heart the color of that particular cat's significant other (Torrie's is black for her black sweetie, Pittbutton, Feisal's is black for Zilla & so on) so that they, too, could be remembered whenever MomKatt looked at one of these kitties.  

Previously, another kitty mommeh we know, Miz Niki, sent one of Miz Laura's kitties to MomKatt when Sharif died last September, so MomKatt took these four up to her office and put them with Sharif, so now they are all grouped together, just so, with Miz Amy's card, on one of the shelves of a bookcase in that room.

Here they all are on the kitchen counter, along with the card, before MomKatt took them all upstairs.  (As befitting his place as the elder katt - the "root and branch" of our clowder - Sharif is put at the top here.)

And here they all are in their permanent home:

MomKatt arranged them in order of their departures:  Kukla first on the far left, then Torrie, Feisal, Sharif & Livia.

They even have name labels stitched onto them, and their names are hand-written by Miz Laura purrsonally.

To say that MomKatt was "profoundly moved" only touches the surface of what she felt last night, opening this special box, reading that sweet card and looking at these representations of those sweet, furry souls that she adored with all of her heart.  

If you had told her, four years ago, when she initially joined www.Catster.com, that out of that action she'd receive the love & caring & friendship of so many kind, wonderful cat-loving people - both men and women - from all over the globe, she'd have thought, "Oh, no way!  I'm just getting on this website because it looks like fun!"  Out of that one action, MomKatt and DadKatt are members of a tight, loving circle of souls who laugh with them, rejoice with them, admire their furry babies, share their own furkids with them, and grieve with them when, like last week, they have to send one of us on to our Tenth Inning.

To say that she's overwhelmed by this gift from Miz Amy - and especially what was written in the card - sort of comes close to all the feelings she had last night, and still feels right now, like a very warm, tangled glow in her chest.

Thank you, Miz Amy, and thank ALL our friends ... for BEING our friends.

Purrs,
Selina & MomKatt Laura