Twinkle was the sweetest and most loving cat I have ever known or been the pet parent of. I chose her at a pet store in the Orange Park Mall in Jacksonville, Florida. She was sitting in her litter box looking very sad and lonely because her brother had just been adopted. Her first experience as an adopted kitty was when I carried her into a bookstore in the mall where I heard someone say, "Someone's got a cat in here!" I just carried her around in my arms which I would never have done later in her life due to safety reasons.  She had some scary experiences as an adult cat.  When I went on vacation she fell down the hole in the floor of the apartment utility room and was now in the crawlspace.  I rushed home to find her wandering around the dirty crawlspace. After crawling in the space and getting really dirty, I grabbed her and got her out and promptly gave her a bath. When I was packing my moving truck to move to Michigan, she got out of the cat carrier and ran into the fenced in dumpster area.  I had to break the lock to get in there and scooped her into my arms and then into the carrier which I immediately locked. In my apartment in Mount Morris, Michigan, the screen window in my living room was loose and one day she had knocked it down and got outside.  Luckily I lived in the lower level apartment so the window was at ground level.  Unfortunately, I could not stay home to look for her so I had to go to work thinking I would never see my precious Twinkle again.  When I got home, there was a note on the laundry room door that said, “Do not enter, scared kitty in dryer” and the door was locked.  The screen window in the laundry room was also loose which is how she got in there. When Twinkle was about nine years old, she had her teeth cleaned.  There were about four teeth that were beyond help so they were removed.  I was working so my husband (fiancé at the time) picked her up from the vet.  Twinkie was very sensitive to the anesthesia. My husband told me he laid her on the bed where she started throwing up while still unconscious.  If he had not been there to clean the vomit out of her mouth, she probably would have suffocated to death.  He saved her life that day. Although they never actually mated, Twinkle and my other cat Tigger were like soul mates.  Tigger was a fairly large male black and gray tabby who passed away on September 11, 2002 during surgery.  He suddenly became ill only six days prior to his passing.  He was almost a year old when I got Twinkle.  In pictures of them during the first few months after she arrived, she looks so small compared to him.  They bonded almost instantly. Twinkle had always been a very healthy cat until about two months before she passed.  She could leap and jump from the floor to the back of the sofa which was probably about three feet.  She never appeared to have arthritis or other afflictions.  Even when she was ill during the last month of her life, I caught her on the top of my kitchen cupboards a couple of times.  

In the last few days of her life, she spent most of her time in the kitchen sink.  Since I knew she was ill, I did not scold her or make her get down.  I even put a stepstool near the counter so she could get down and back up when she wanted to.  I put a fluffy towel in the sink so she would be as comfortable as possible.  Even though I knew she wouldn’t live forever, it still was a painful shock.  Just as I did with my first kitty, Tigger, I had her cremated and will keep her ashes in a memorial urn.  I like to think that she is happy, healthy, enjoying time with her beloved Tigger in heaven.  I think heaven wouldn’t be heaven without beloved pets.