by Ravena Wade
A lot was supposed to happen differently. Promises had been made. Whispered with sweet reassuring kisses, vowed to be kept. Well, you can ask me the true value of a promise. He was dark grey with black stripes, with bright yellow eyes. The value of a promise was my best friend. We were moving, we were moving, from New York to Florida, it was the holidays, and we were gonna make two trips. To make a long story short, we never made the second trip, unavoidable things went wrong. All the while, the cats were staying with my daughter's father's family. Calls sent news of the cats doing fine. So my worried eased. Well two weeks turned into eight months. Not a day went by that I didn't miss them. We finally made it back, and we found Madcat okay, but the neighbors had rescused him from near death six months before, unknown to me. then I searched for Tiggy. It was raining that day and cool , as I walked down the street. "Here Tiggy, Tiggy,Tiggy." I called. A small, thin cat appeared down the street, wet, and meowing. He begun to run towards me, when he got close he was weary. I held my hand out and wiggled my fingers, he knew, that was our thing. I was saddened by his condition, and angered that I was lied to. I took him home and began nursing him back to health, his weight picked up and he sat in my lap again and purred. My joy was short-lived, though. In the following days, his weight suddenly dropped and his health rapidly failed before my helpless eyes. Ineveitably, I had to make the choice, that hard, final decision. In that room, in a chair, I cried with him in my arms, and held him as close to my heart as I could. I told him I wasn't ready to say good-bye, he wasn't old, and I felt cheated, but he was suffering, I knew I had to. I whispered to him as he purred contently, that I would never be ready to say good-bye. In the short lived moments that followed, I kissed his head and petted him softly. He looked at me and let out a soft meow, and purred as life slipped gently from him. I was empty and hurting, sobbing as I petted his head and touched his paw. In his death he changed my life. He waited for me to be there with him to stop holding on and then he set me free. I moved across the country with my daughter to start over, to get out of a bad situation, that for the love of a simple cat I would have stayed, because the means of travel I took didn't except pets. In his death he gave me the greatest gift of his love-freedom. his friendship was a gift of life to me. He was my friend and my angel. Every day I remember him in some little way. Every night I dream of the rainbow bridge and Tiggy with restored health, and I miss him, and I feel sad for the years stolen from me. An unspoken, unconditional love, that fills my heart today, and always. of every bridge I cross in my life, my thoughts are of the last-the Rainbow bridge...farewell sweet friend, until we meet again...Ravena