In Remembrance of...

A BEGINNING NOTE

Since these blog posts will be turned into at least one book, I decided to start Kara's story like a book. Here are the first couple of pages:

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Working Title of Blog Post Series and Book:

"Moments with Kara: What a feral cancer cat taught me about faith and life"

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DEDICATION

Kara, our Baby Girl and Little Bit, you will never be forgotten, our faithful and loyal friend and companion. Your strength and love will inspire us to live better lives and be better people as we wait to see you again in eternity. You never let even their cancer hold you back or get you down and allowed love to help you be steadfast. 

What an inspiration you were and are. Your resiliency was absolutely remarkable.

Snuggle up to the Lord for us.

ONCE UPON A TIME

There once was a cat. Her name was Kara.

This is the story of a merging of lives and this is the tale of our journey together.

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A LED MEMORIAL CANDLE SHINES 

I am a writer of nonfiction and fiction and am a journal keeper. Therefore, I have an office in one of the bedrooms of our home. It's devoted to writing and reading and has no bed in it, unless you count our bald faced eagle's sighed, where he is now, sleeping away. This is where I sit now and I have a round pedestal table, which I use as a desk. On this desk sits a LED tealight candle in remembrance of Kara Duplease.

It is a flameless LED candle since I cannot have regular candles because our other cat, Sinan (pronounced see-nawn), a crazy and woolly Maine Coon who caught his tail on fire once when he jumped on my desk to get in the way of my writing. He was and is just fine. I will share the story another time, but this is why I don't use a real candle to stand as a memorial of our Baby Girl.

Every time I write at my desk, or at the sofa downstairs, I make sure to light it and remember our feral cancer cat who thoroughly stole our hearts. It is the least I can do. 

OUR BABY GIRL

It has been sixteen days since my husband and I made the choice to have Kara put to sleep. 

Pardon me as I pause for a moment and try to recollect myself as just writing that sentence has stirred up several emotions, never mind memories. 

Here it is Fall, and my favorite time of year, I am reminded as I look out my window and see the yellow, orange, and red leaves of trees in the distance. And that flashes an image in my mind of when Kara found us, how it was Fall and I have a couple of pictures of the feral cat with colorful Fall leaves beside her. She made Fall my favorite season all the more because it brought her into our lives. 

It was just over a year ago.

Kara stepped into our open garage, and into the lives of my husband and me, in the Fall. And, she stepped out of our physical lives just one year, six days later, and she has so thoroughly changed us that her story must be told. It must be remembered and shared. 

Oh, what a year!

When Kara stepped into our garage and into our lives, it was after my husband and I found out we were both infertile, after we tried two rounds of IVF, and tried to adopt... and we had just made the decision to not have children. 

We thought she was a feral kitten with how small and malnourished she was, only to find out by our veterinarian how she was a senior on one visit, and only to find out on another she had both breast and lung cancer. Therefore, we decided to spoil her rotten and love on her as long as we could, in a way we knew she had never been loved. 

Those last two paragraphs were a teaser as to the rest of this blog and book. I hope you now understand more of the context in which she came into our lives. And, I hope you see when we call her our Baby Girl, she was just that. She was probably the closest thing we will ever have to one and we loved her with our whole being and spent great resources (time and money) as we tried to give her at least some time of the life she deserved. She sure hadn't deserved being beaten and abandoned (I will write more on that, too). 

Kara never knew before us the kind of love we gave her and we didn't know the kind of love she gave us.

Yes, Baby Girl... This Blog and book are in remembrance of you.