Tiger, months have passed since you passed on and I still do a double-take when I see a neighbour’s cat that looked so much like you, thinking it might be you!  You were so unique though, with an extra beauty about you, a loving and playful nature, so beautiful and friendly you made people smile.  It is hard to believe that you were only one year old - what a troubled short life you experienced; finding yourself in the Pound as a kitten, adopted by someone who just wasn’t up to the task of loving and caring for another living creature, passed to someone else who didn’t care enough and ending up on the street and finding your way to Toni and Guy at Cronulla where they cared enough to take you in, one of their people taking you home.  I remember remarking on you and thinking how tempted I would be to take on a third cat if you were available...!  Then you came to me to foster as Louise wasn’t supposed to have you in her unit and as you were also going stir crazy wanting to be able to go outside and explore, that you were literally climbing the fly screens!  I cared for you, cuddled you like a baby and made sure you were kept safe inside at night, after a couple of weeks having allowed you outside during the day, in to the garden and our quiet leafy area (I thought).  You loved your bed at the bottom of the cat activity centre and playing with your toys and before long you also started to come along with the dogs when I took them for a walk.  I loved you but hated the way you woke me up at 5am every day!  But I hated myself for feeling annoyed and impatient with you, and particularly so after being that way one Thursday morning in May; the half-hearted pat I gave you later from my bed which I had returned to, small consolation I expect, and there was no way from then of making up for it.  I realise now you probably woke early and simply thought it best to get out of the ‘pets’ bedroom’ and away from Bailey’s jealousy.  Unfortunately Bailey (although you were both desexed) felt threatened by you, another male cat in his territory and around his ‘girlfriend’, Chilli, and objected to your presence, perhaps particularly on the walks with the dogs that he also enjoyed and soon the tension in the air was palpable.  I wonder if that contributed to your accident.  I choose to believe it was an unfortunate accident, your apparent brush with a car (your nails on one side were frayed from trying to hold on to the road, always a good indication that a car was the cause of death in a cat, my vet later informed me), and that the driver probably didn’t even realise what they had done, as you weren’t run over per se, just ‘glanced off’ a wheel maybe – I expect the driver didn’t feel it, but you did, the impact took your life and took you away from me, before I could find you a suitable permanent home - you only managed to run a couple of metres and lay down behind a bush to die of your internal injuries.  I’m sorry I didn’t contain you in the house, Tiger, as I had noticed you weren’t as road savvy as Bailey and Chilli and I now realise it would have been kinder in the long run, because accidents do happen, even via those people who would never intentionally harm a small, innocent animal, just out and about exploring their turf, attempting to enjoy their day, doing what animals do!  You ‘went missing’ on Thursday, and the whole of Mortdale, Peakhurst and Oatley must have known a loved pet called Tiger was missing as I asked around, then searched high and low for you, and the neighbours also searched for you, and I went calling your name throughout Oatley Park on Saturday and Sunday, thinking perhaps you were lost and afraid, perhaps sitting hurt somewhere, unable to get yourself home, waiting for me to find you and take you to safety and make everything okay again.  Then at last I found you, stretched out behind that bush, rigor mortis come and gone; the vets explained the process to me, telling me that you had probably died on Thursday, the day you had ‘gone missing’.  You wouldn’t have heard me calling you and if you did I wouldn’t have heard you respond to me!  I couldn’t bury you in my garden, I don’t own the house that is my home and that was also your home but a neighbour said you could be buried in her garden and another neighbour dug the hole and you now have a peaceful resting place, marked out by a bowl of indestructible plastic flowers.  But I don’t think of you lying there in the earth, I imagine you wandering through an idyllic setting full of real flowers, butterflies, soft sunshine, chirping birds and bubbling brooks, in the other realm, heaven, rather like the fluffy cat in the Purina ad!  Tiger, I miss you and still find myself feeling baffled that your life could be over ‘like that’, so suddenly and unexpectedly.  I choose to believe it was your time, that everything happens for a reason and I choose to believe the vets who told me that you would have died quickly without undue suffering.  I choose to believe.  I believe that you are happy and content where you are now and that the ‘silent meows’ that run through my mind at times, particularly when I’m in the bathroom where you liked to visit me when you were alive (like when I was, umm, brushing my teeth)!, are in fact you visiting me now in spirit, from ‘the other side’. 

Rest in peace, Tiger darling, you won’t be forgotten. 

Mummy.