I can so relate on so many levels.

When I got Bear, I had actually gone to the home of a close friend who was on the Board of a local cat rescue, and fostered literally dozens of kittens and cats in her home.

I was there because our shop kitty Turbo had recently passed, and my soon-to-be-ex husband was missing her terribly, so my purpose there was to get him a kitten.

The only little tuxedo kitten she had had a cold, and so couldn't be adopted out until she was well, but in the meantime a pair of 4-month old black kittens took to me, and climbed up on my shoulders, where they seemed content to stay.

This was Bear and his littermate sister, Siesta, who I promptly adopted for my ex, and I asked Joan to keep Bear for me until I could pick him up the following day.

I thought I was nuts for getting another kitten, when I still had two elder cats at home, but it was love at first sight and I just couldn't not take him. And I've always been grateful that I did.

Bonnie and Clydesdale, our two tuxedo kitties at home, were both elders, nearing fourteen years at the time. Turbo, our shop kitty, was twelve when she passed, but she had been a carrier for feline AIDS since kittenhood, and the stress of our split did in her immune system, so that the disease finally took hold.

Clyde had been given radiation treatment for thyroid disease the year before, and had responded beautifully, but shortly after getting Bear, I noticed that Bonnie, my familiar at the time, had developed a growth on her lower jaw.

I took her to the vet, who confirmed my worst fear that it was cancer, and gave me the option of aggressive treatment which might buy her some time, but at what cost to her quality of living, or simply making her as comfortable as possible for the time she had left, and allowing nature to take its course. I chose the latter.

As Bonnie's growth got bigger, Clyde became aggressive toward her, but she and Bear bonded, and she allowed him to curl up against her. She always was a sweetheart. I had her put down when it became clear that she was beginning to suffer.

Six months or so later, Clyde's thyroid issues got bad again, and we lost her too. I don't know what I would have done without having Bear by my side.

And interestingly, our two younger girls have both turned up on the same neighbor's doorstep, two doors down from me, who would love to have kept them, but his wife is allergic.

Musica was about two years old, and healthy as a horse, and had already been spayed, so we guessed that someone had dumped her nearby. She showed up shortly after we lost Marek's cat Nutka.

Truffle showed up about ten weeks after my next-door-neighbor's cat had kittens, but even though she looked a lot like the mom, she was clearly only about six weeks old, so not part of the same litter, and starving to the point of emaciation. I'm guessing her mom was likely killed by a car or a predator.

And she showed up not long after we lost our cat Edit, whom then-7-year-old Bear adopted as a kitten in Florida, while we gone on a search for our new property.

Cats find us when we need one another. ;-)