We actually got Sola before Maynard, but we still considered her as our emergency-back-up-cat. Female cats can be standoffish bordering on antisocial. Of course it was hard, even for a cat, to be distant when camped on the foot of our bed. Maynard loves us, Sola let us share her bed. As a bed buddy, Sola was a replacement for Cisco, our poofy-tailed pal who formerly held that position. But Sola didn't have Cisco's joie de vivre nor Maynard's stoner zen. Instead she had a really annoying meow. The pathetic sound she made as a kitten didn't go away, it just got louder. She could ignore us, but we couldn't ignore her high volume howl. Eventually, she didn't want to be ignored and responded with loud purring to two handed petting. Two hands meant there was no possibility of multitasking. That is what all cats secretly want, undivided attention--possibly worship.
If the fact that Sola had been more demanding lately, indicated a health problem, she was dying her whole life. Alex, who let her out yesterday morning and found her dead in the yard when he came home that afternoon, was upset because he was housesitting for us and because he had known her from the time she was born. Before we even decided to get another cat, I remember Alex watching TV with the kitten snuggling against his leg under a blanket. Sola was the lone offspring of one of the feral cats his family fed. She was the only one in her litter, hence the name. Sola is short for solamente, the Spanish word for only. As her personality developed, we surmised she might have had siblings--but killed them.
I worried Sola would grow up scraggly like the other feral cats on my sister's property. They were the feline version of dingoes. . Two months later, Tracy brought her home to me for Mother's Day and two months after that, Maynard followed Tracy home from Leisure Island. In a short time we went from hoping Maynard found another home to being willing to fight to the death for him. In Biblical terms, Sola was definitely the less-loved-Leah of the two cats, but cats leave their mark in your life. Sometimes they are claw marks, but you find yourself missing them nonetheless. So long, Sola.
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