There they were, motherless. Four tiny flea-infested kittens, in a cardboard box, dumped outside the local Animal Shelter, on a Sunday morning. My daughter and I volunteered to foster all of them, and Xena, our newly adopted Siamese momma kitty, thought they were hers, as soon as we brought them home, and gave them a flea bath. The blood ran rusty brown in the water, they were so badly infested. Their little cries brought Xena crying for them, having just been seperated from her own kittens, who had gone to the shelter to be adopted.
Our friends thought they would die. But my daughter didn't and with her and Xena, their foster mommy, all four survived!
We decided to keep two, and return two to the shelter, for adoption into their own forever homes, when they were well, and big enough.
My kitty was black, smaller than most, and so gentle that she never once hurt anyone in her relatively too short life. She was pronounced diabetic after 2006, and had to have insulin shots every day. She was so brave about that!
Then, in November of 2008, she was diagosed with cancer. On a Wednesday. She died on the Friday night after that. Eleven years old. She was buried next to her sister, Serephina, who had died of the same cancer the year before.
But we had such a wonderful life together, I believe that her life was as good as I was able to give her.
I know that MY life was immeasurably enriched by her company, and her comforting me as I fought cancer, lost my mom,and then, my dad, to cancer, too.
I never had a more wonderful friend than Tierianna, who will be remembered by my whole family, for our lifetimes, I believe.
Sharon Hayakawa
Independence, MO
