I truly believe I was a cat in a former life. I have always had a special relationship with, and understanding of, cats. I got my first cat when I was about 6 or 7 years old but it wasn't my cat technically. It was given to my father as his Father's Day gift.

My father was not a warm and fuzzy type of person and was not very welcoming for pets, so my mother and I conjured a plan to give my father a kitten for Father's Day so he couldn't refuse it. 

I recall the kitten being a black/brown/white Maine coon with white paws so I named him Boots. My brother, however, being the mean-spirited boy that he was, called the kitten 'Shithead' often enough that the kitten began responding to that name. Boots grew into a nervous ornery cat largely because of my brother's abusive behavior toward it. 

I don't recall much about Boots except the day he died. I remember it was a Sunday morning and I was the first person awake in the house. Boots wanted to go outside so I let him out thinking nothing of it. A few hours later after the rest of my family woke up and gathered in the kitchen for breakfast, one of them looked outside and saw something in the road in front of our house. My mother and father immediately began arguing about who was going to go out to investigate and remove the body from the road. I'm quite sure my father was tasked with the job since my mother doesn't have that kind of courage. 

I don't recall how much time passed before I insisted on getting another kitten. I don't remember if we got Boots II before or after my mother left my father and took me with her. Boots II was also a black/brown/white Maine coon with white paws. The photo on this post is one of the few pictures I have of him. According to the writing on the back of the photo, Boots II died in August 1984 from feline leukemia.

I recall my mother and I took Boots II to the vet and had to leave him there to be euthanized because of his fatal illness. I remember being so distraught that I left the building while my mother was talking with the doctor and I went outside, sat on the steps and lit up a cigarette. This would be the first time I smoked a cigarette in front of my mother since I began smoking at 12 years old. I was 15 years old when Boots II died, and my parents had been divorced for 3 years by then.