I don’t really know where to begin this post. If you haven’t gathered, it’s about my cat. I guess I’ll just begin, as everything does, at the beginning.
One snowy evening in the winter of 2008, I drove to a stranger’s nearby apartment in the middle of a snowstorm to pick up a cat. I can’t quite remember what made me decide I needed a cat – after all, I’d never had a pet before and I was still in college – but nevertheless I politely asked my roommates if they’d mind having a new friend around and soon stumbled across an ad for a free cat on the now long-defunct Facebook Marketplace.
Her name was “Kitty” and they were getting rid of her because they’d gotten a chihuahua; the two weren’t getting along.
I gathered her in a flimsy cardboard carrier printed to look like a house and she cried for the whole five-or-so minute ride to her new home. For a few weeks, she was very scared and hid under my bed all day most days. She was in a weird, new place with a weird, new, weirdly giddy lady.
But slowly, she warmed up, and we’ve been inseparable ever since.
I named her Mony.
Mony has been my constant companion for eight years.
Through college graduation, and through jobs that seemed to nearly kill me.
Through a marriage that didn’t work out.
Through the times I was so depressed I could barely get myself out of bed in the morning.
Through an embarrassing number of relationships, good, bad, and ugly. (She lets me know if a man is a keeper or not.)
Through move after move, apartment after apartment, state after state.
When I’m sick or sad, Mony curls up into the space between my arm and my body and stays there until I feel better.
When I act like I’m too busy to pay attention to her, she (mostly) understands, and she loves me anyway.
She runs to the door to greet me when I get home, no matter how long I’ve been gone, and when I see her, everything feels okay again, whether or not it actually is.
I could never have imagined just how much I would love a ridiculous, 7 lb. creature. And for as long as I get to have this tiny, special angel in my life, I will be grateful.
