A Letter to Kikko

Dear Kikko,

When I woke up this morning, I was hoping you would jump onto the bed as usual so that I could stroke you while you purred. You used to make me laugh when you would raise your paw for me to continue stroking you whenever I stopped doing so. I looked at your small bed, but it was empty. I waited to hear your "good morning" cry, but there was only silence.

When I went to prepare my coffee, I saw your favourite food bowl. Do you remember how you would start jumping as soon as I touched it? Do you remember how happy you used to be whenever I gave you one of those special treats? I looked at the bowl, remembering how Wendy and I smiled joyfully as we saw you eating from it last Saturday. The bowl is still there, waiting for you...

When I returned home today, I did not find you waiting for me just behind the door. I was greeted by silence. A silence pregnant with pain.

I saw the water fountain we had bought for you. How you loved drinking from it! And all the small toys scattered all over the place!




I will start cooking soon, but you will not be there sitting next to me. You remember how naughty you were whenever I had some chicken on the table? Always trying to steal a piece?

I feel so bad that I was unable to do anything more to save you! When I took you to the vet yesterday afternoon, he told me that you were slipping away and that there was no real hope of survival. I hope that you still remember me next to you at the clinic, stroking your magnificent coat, as death edged closer to take you away from me. How I resisted the tears during those last few minutes! How I wanted to cry as I tried to imagine life without you!

I entered the vet's office with a cage, but I left with just the towel you were sleeping on. I still remember the expression of the man who had allowed me to enter before him due to the urgency of your condition. When he saw me leaving the office with the towel, he gave me a supporting hug.

As I walked back home, the tears just started streaming down my cheeks uncontrollably. I had not felt such a degree of pain since the day I had seen my mom's lifeless body at Boffa Hospital in 2006.

Dear Kikko, I hope that you are now happy in Heaven. I hope that you met your brother, Carlo, again and that you are now playing with each other. I hope that my mother was also there to stroke and comfort you; to tell you that we are missing you so much!!!!

I just pray that shortly after I take my last breath on Earth, you will be there to greet me. I pray that you will be purring there. And I pray that nothing will ever separate us again.