**My dearest Mish,**

**It has been one whole year since you left this world, and somehow my heart still cannot understand that you are gone. It feels impossible that so much time has passed, because to me, losing you still feels like yesterday.**

**There has not been a single day or night that I have not thought about you. Sometimes the memories make me smile, but most of the time they bring tears to my eyes because I miss you more than words could ever explain. The ache in my heart has never gone away. It is just something I have learned to carry.**

**You were not just my cat. You were my baby, my companion, my comfort, my family, and such a huge part of my heart. You and I belonged to each other. From the moment I rescued you when you were only four days old, so tiny and helpless, a piece of my heart became yours forever.**

**I would give anything to go back to that day. I would hold your little body in my hands again, kiss your tiny head, and tell you that you were going to have a beautiful life and that I would love you for every second of it.**

**And I did.**

**For 14 years, I loved you with everything I had.**

**I watched you grow from that tiny baby into my beautiful boy. I cared for you, worried about you, laughed because of you, talked to you, slept beside you, and built so much of my life around you. You were always there. Just knowing you were near made everything feel right.**

**When CKD began taking you away from me, I wanted so desperately to save you. I would have given up anything I owned, anything I had, if it could have made you well again. I kept hoping there would be one more treatment, one more answer, one more miracle.**

**But eventually I looked at you and knew.**

**I knew your little body was tired.**

**And loving you meant I had to do the one thing that completely broke me.**

**I had to let you go.**

**Mish, I hope somehow you understood that I did not give up on you. I never could have. I let you rest because I loved you too much to let you suffer for one more day just because I was not ready to live without you.**

**I held you because I wanted the last thing you felt in this life to be my love.**

**I hope you felt safe.**

**I hope you knew Mommy was there.**

**And I hope you knew that if love alone could have saved you, you would have lived forever.**

**There are moments when I still expect to see you. Sometimes I wish so badly that I could hear your little footsteps, see your face looking at me, or feel you beside me again.**

**I miss everything about you.**

**I miss caring for you.**  
**I miss talking to you.**  
**I miss your little habits.**  
**I miss saying your name.**  
**I miss knowing that when I came home, you were there.**

**Most of all, I miss being your Mommy.**

**No other kitty could ever replace you, Mish. No one could ever take the place in my heart that belongs only to you. The space you left behind is yours forever because there will never be another you.**

**I wish I could hold you just one more time.**

**Just one more minute.**

**I would bury my face in your fur, kiss you over and over, and tell you everything I should have told you a thousand more times.**

**Thank you for choosing me.**  
**Thank you for trusting me.**  
**Thank you for growing up beside me.**  
**Thank you for loving me for 14 beautiful years.**

**Those years will never be enough for me, but they were one of the greatest gifts of my life.**

**My sweet boy, wherever you are, please know that Mommy still talks to you. I still think about you. I still love you exactly the same.**

**And please come visit me.**

**Send me a little sign now and then so I know you are close. Let me feel you near me when my heart hurts the most.**

**Until the day I can hold you again, you rest, my beautiful boy.**

**Run without pain.**  
**Sleep in the sunshine.**  
**Be happy.**  
**Be free.**

**And save a place for me.**

**Because one day, when my time comes, I truly believe the first thing my heart will look for is you.**

**And when I find you, I will hold you again.**

**This time, I will never have to let you go.**

**Happy first anniversary in Heaven, my precious Mish.**

**You were my baby then.**  
**You are my baby now.**  
**And you will be my baby forever.**

**I love you beyond this life and into whatever comes next.**

**Forever yours,**

**Mommy**

Mish, My Once-in-a-Lifetime Love