My Cat Yuna

This is my furry baby, Yuna. Like all cats, she has her our unique personality. We like to call it part dog, part monkey, part human, and sometimes she remembers that she is a cat. She has been a part of our family for just over 4 years now. We cannot imagine what life would be without her. This is the story of how she came to be a part of our lives.

She was not originally suppose to be with us. For years my kids had constantly asked for a kitty, and for reason that really don't matter now, I had to turn them down. Not that it was easy. I have been a cat lover all my life.

So, why all of a sudden did all of that change. The simple answer is I was conned.

I was having lunch with one of their grandmothers, and somehow I got talked into agreeing to at least look at some pets before I outright said no. We had had a big upheaval in our lives at the time, so it was easy to get me to agree because I was vulnerable. (Some of you are probably calling BS on that, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

I was at her mercy since we had come in her vehicle, so where did she decide to go to look at pets. To the Humane Society of course! Where better to take a bleeding heart like me. (There was the first strike against me.) They took us in back to the cat room, where I would say that they had about six in at the time.

One particular cat stood out. In the corner of the room I heard the more pitiful meowing ever. It was coming from a year old cat, and the meowing wasn't the only thing that was pitiful. She was missing about half of her fur, her whiskers had been cut and she also weighted half of what she was suppose to. She shook like crazy and was a bit skittish. Despite all this, she was so affectionate. The card on the cages said that she was called Milo, and that we shared the same birthday. (Yeah, strike two.)

We left the room to check out the dogs there, but as soon as we walked away from the cage, the cries began again. And as if that wasn't bad enough, you could still hear she throughout the building. It got so bad, I started crying and saying, "We can't just leave her here. We need to take her home." (Strike three, folks!)

She has been twisting me around her little paw ever since.

One of the first things we did after getting her home was to give her a new name. This was for a couple of reasons. 1.) We wanted to give her a completely new start. The name she had was from her previous life. 2.) When anyone heard her name, they assumed she was a male cat. Yeah, not cool.

So after running through a laundry list of names from cute to cool to silly, we settled on Yuna from a character in Final Fantasy X. She is the main female character who is beautiful, strong, brave and kind even knowing what her future holds. We felt it was perfect. (Now that we have gotten to know her personality better, she is more of a Yuffie from Final Fantasy VII, a mischievous ninja.)

In the months that followed, she put on the weight, grew all her fur back, and grew new whiskers. At first she would hide constantly, but slowly but surely, she started coming out. Soon she was hanging out with us.

You can say a pet belongs to someone, but the truth is that the pet picks you. Despite getting the kitty for my kids, Yuna has decided that she is my cat. And I'm okay with that.

I hope her story will encourage people to seek to adopt pets who truly need a loving home. You give them so much, but they give so much more back.