Thank You, Tiger Stripes

Private

We didn’t want you in the first place.

But you came anyway.

And you walked right into our lives and into our hearts.

A forlorn, abandoned kitten with a crook in your tail.

But you grew quite a bit in the last couple of months.

Into a healthy, lovable, funny, entertaining, comical, beautiful kitten.

Then we moved to a different place.

Our former landlords would have given you a safer home than this.

But we were too attached.

And I guess I was too selfish.

Now you’re gone.

I just buried you out back, at the edge of the woods.

I can hardly believe it yet.

You were just too fearless and dumb when it came to vehicles.

But I thought you feared the ones zooming by on the road.

Either you didn’t.

Or last night one swerved onto the shoulder to “get” you.

And to think that just last evening I was thinking we should give you to our former landlords.

And now it’s too late.

I’m sorry. For us in particular.

It seems like heartache upon heartache in the midst of enough woes.

Maybe that’s why it hurts as much as it does.

So…thank you for the happiness and comic relief you brought to us.

We will miss you. And so will your good buddy, “Uncle” Tyke.