I was never a lover of cats until an extraordinary one came into my life. The people who bought him as a kitten let him run the streets right from the beginning.
Someone found him when he was hungry and sick and asked me to care for him to keep him from being run over or freezing to death on a bitter night. He had been in a fight, and his face was grossly swollen with a bad abscess. He hadn't been neutered, so I wondered how many litters he and all the stray female felines had contributed to the huge numbers of homeless and unwanted cats.
I called him Gray Boy and had him for a year. He taught me a lot about love and devotion and loyalty. Then, suddenly he died. He had been infected with feline HIV and leukemia on the street. If only people would keep their pets at home.
After the tears came the "what ifs." What if he had been neutered? What if they had kept him home where he wouldn't have gotten into fights?
A year wasn't long enough for us — just long enough to break my heart.
Alice Smith
Salt Lake City