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To live in the present, how many times have we tried to learn that since we came to this world? How often have we forgotten to enjoy what we have because we are too worried about what we don't have or what we might have in the future? I remember when I was a kid, my parents would bring me to amusement parks, and I would ask my mum what my next ride would be while I was still on another one. It took me 30 years to learn this lesson, a lesson that would be taught to me by a cat, a very special cat that appeared on my doorstep a few days before my previous cat, Simba, passed away, after falling under the rapid fire of the so dreaded and feared feline mortal illness, feline leukaemia. When I met this special cat, whose name would become Luna in a couple of weeks, I was still taking care of my dying cat. I would just greet her every day outside and feed her on the balcony, she seemed like a very friendly cat, possibly around 3 years old and too friendly to be a feral cat. The bottom line is that she was very approachable and would come to eat the food from your hand even without knowing you. My Simba died and I kept taking care of her on the balcony, I didn't want a new cat, because I was grieving Simba and to me, it felt like a betrayal to him but Luna was sleeping now permanently on my balcony ( it was at the ground floor so she was free to go anytime) and the winter was coming; eventually, I decided after like 10 days to bring her in the house but not before testing her for FeLV: I would never want to go through the curse of that disease again, and neither could I economically because at that time I was still living with my parents. Most importantly, not emotionally because losing Simba was costing me a great deal to survive and keep motivation in the things I was doing (at that time I was a med student, still missing several exams from graduation). I clearly remember the day in which I brought her to the vet, I was so thrilled to just, you know, have a new cat, free from that bad beast... I was so happy, a happiness that lasted about 30 minutes, the time the vet needed to bring me the result from the rapid test, Luna was Felv positive. Despair, anger, fear, a lot of mixed feelings, my mum was "angry "at me because she didn't want the family to go through that nightmare again (especially since economically my parents were the ones in charge as I didn't have a job). We decided to keep Luna outside for a bit more... because we were still in shock, and we didn't want to go again through all that... that lasted 3 days because, in the end, I convinced my mum to let her in and to adopt her anyway, with the deal with my parents that "when she'd become sick, we would just let her go". I found myself in a new situation, me, constantly focused on the future and never on the present... focused on the many exams I still had to do at my university (and for this reason feeling overwhelmed and not being able to get back to my books). Always focused on what would come and not on the present. I found myself in conflict. With Luna If I wanted to learn to live with her, I had to learn to enjoy only one thing, the present, because every new day with her was a present. The future was unknown, and it could not be predicted, any day she could get sick and just leave me. You would think this is a trivial concept, maybe it is, to me it was not, and it was, and it still is one of the hardest things to do in my current life, to focus on what is now and not on what is going to come. However, Luna came to teach me that. She taught me with her unstoppable love (so much love that I would call her a "nurse" cat. I desperately needed help, and she gave it to me) that the only way I had to push through my life was to stop worrying about the future and to just push on every day, little by little, step by step so that I could achieve everything I wanted. From the day she got into my house, around the end of October 2017, a long incredible story started. Luna would nurse me every day through my sorrow, almost depression. She would give me the strength to carry on, step by step, day after day. I started to do my exams again, I was productive, I pushed through it, with her, until after 1 year and a half, I graduated. Unfortunately, just a couple of months before my graduation, she had started to get ill again, anemia was getting her. I found out in time because I was very alert about any possible sign that might have been a red flag (she was eating the litter from the tray). I immediately started to treat her. And from that December in 2018, she started to fight her battle against the active virus that was replicating through her. She responded to the therapy which she would keep doing... for the rest of her life. Months passed, a weekly or monthly check-up by the vet, she was a critical cat and of course she needed to be constantly followed up. She stayed by my side, supporting me with her presence and caring, grooming my arm when she would groom herself nuzzled in my elbow, sleeping with me like a person with her face on the pillow and the rest of her body aligned to my chest, reminding me that I had not to worry about the future, I just had to focus on what was happening now. At that moment it worked because I was able to push through all the challenges that life was giving me. After my graduation, it became time for me to face another very hard challenge, the public competition for a fresh, young doctor to win a spot in a residency. This is not the same over the world but in my country, at that time it was particularly challenging to get a spot (and even more in the field you wanted): they were busy and stressful months. But Luna was there with me. She supported me letting me unwind and breathe, still going to the vet every month and taking medications but she was strong and determined to just live and be there for me and my whole family. I got into the residency. Finally, I had a job, and I was able to have an income and take care of all Luna's expensive medical bills by myself. I was so happy I could finally take care of her without having my parents do it. I remember how happy I was when I could afford to remove all her teeth because she had a sore mouth with her gums being inflamed. She could finally eat pain-free, her bloodwork also got better, she was strong... she was my little lioness, a proud successor of my Simba. She stayed by my side for so long that I eventually moved out from my parents' house and I went to live with my girlfriend and Luna (she came with me not because I was selfish to take her away from my parents but because I was the only one who was able to take care of her high medical needs) into a nice apartment in front of the sea, where I made a balcony especially for her, with safety nets and all kind of protection so that she could finally have her very own " cat-patio" ( she didn't have it at my parents' house nor a garden).. and this happened in September 2020. She was happy, you could tell how much she enjoyed the new house and her new space, she could look at the sea from pretty much all her cat trees. In the cold winter she would sun-bathe under the sun on her cat-patio, and when it was not so cold, she would sleep outside on the balcony, enjoying the fresh air. She was our little baby that helped us survive during the rough times of the lock-downs due to covid. I remember being burned out from the hard work and the many night shifts working in covid intensive care, sometimes I would have a half-night shift and I would get back at home around 2.30 am: she was there when I opened the door, for me to give her a little cuddle and a little treat and get in bed after that with or without her. It was all too good to be true, she had been stable under medications for more than 2 years now. Until eventually we found a mass growing in her spleen and her lymph nodes, a possible lymphoma. It kept growing quite fast till this last June her hematocrit started to drop again, she was anaemic, again, we started immediately right away the therapy full dosage, her bone marrow was not responding anymore. She kept getting worse and she started to become tired and less active. We started chemotherapy to control the lymphoma and somehow give a chance to her bone marrow to react, but nothing worked. Eventually, I had to give her a blood transfusion to give her a further chance to react, she got back some energy from that. However, that did not last long, and her blood values kept decreasing. She wasn't responding to anything, she was eating less, being a lot less active. I could tell from her eyes that she was tired. Eventually, she came to a point in which she started to just lick the food and eating little, I could tell how her meows to me sounded different now, my baby was tired, my baby needed oxygen and I didn't know what to do since nothing was working and the vet gave me no other possible road as at that point the situation was hopeless. One Sunday I woke up, I saw she was too tired, not yet in distress but certainly tired, she hadn't been touching any food overnight, I brought her to the vet for one last blood check, I needed the numerical proof that her values had kept going down, proof that gave me the rational strength to call the vet at my house the day after to put her peacefully to sleep. That was my last gift to her, she wouldn't fall into that state where she could not move anymore, or she would pant and just be miserable. The same state in which I had found my previous cat, Simba, before putting him to sleep. No, this time I had to be strong and take away from me those extra 48 hours with her to spare her the agony. So we put her to sleep and with her, I'm sure I put as well a part of myself to sleep because what I felt was just a sharp deep pain in my chest while I was holding her paw and kissing her pale nose as she was passing to a better condition in which FeLV virus was no more in her body, no lymphomas, no inflammation, no fatiguing liver no more hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, no more heart murmur. It was all gone. Luna, our beloved Principessa, I will never forget you and I will forever try to remember the precious lesson you taught me. I don't know what I would have done without you and I certainly don't know what I will do without you now but I'll find a way to honour what you did for me so that all your fight and strength to heroically last 4 years with me despite your doomed fate, despite an unfair illness that you did not have equal weapons to clear from your body, not for your fault, is not going to be wasted for anything. In these hard days, I try to think about what I read a few months ago from a polish writer, Bashevis "The dead don't go anywhere. They're all here. Each man is a cemetery. An actual cemetery, in which lie all our grandmothers and grandfathers, the father and mother, the wife, the child. Everyone is here all the time." Perhaps everyone is here all the time, Luna, with Simba, maybe they are all still here, I just can't see you all, my pals, I just can't, not yet. Ti amiamo tanto Lunina. ♫ ♫ In fondo con le mani, potevi farci un sacco di lune, un sacco di lune ♫ ♫ 21/07/21 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
07/08/21
Hi my little princess. I miss you so much. I pray god you are safe and happy somewhere.
Mi manchi tantissimo pezza. Spero tu stia bene. 11/10/21
Hey my little princess. Today it's 5 months that you are not anymore with me. I don't even know why I bother to write in here when I don't know even know if you might still feel the things I'm writing for you. Probably Not. I guess it's just a way for me to keep remembering you and try to miss you a little bit less. I don't know. I just wanted to tell you that i miss you so much and that I think of you every day and that I would give away one kidney of mine to just have the chance to listen to your meow again for two seconds, just two seconds. I do listen to your videos often but it's not the same. xxxx 19/12/21
24/04/2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hello my beautiful princess. 30/06/2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ciao pezza. E' quasi passata la prima estate senza di te. Aron e arwen stanno bene e crescono. Vorrei mi parlassero di più come facevi tu. Come stai pezza? Io mi sforzo di pensare che tu ci sia ancora in qualche altra dimensione, non sopporto l'idea di non poterti rivedere mai più. Mi manchi tantissimo. Ci sentiamo presto 08/09/2022
Please come back to me somehow. I need you. :( I miss you pezza . Things are not going so well.
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