I met Hawki when working at the Hawkeye Downs Sinclair convenience store in Cedar Rapids. A pickup truck pulled up to fuel and I saw this pretty, but scrawny cat perched on the dashboard of the truck. When – what I thought was the cat’s owner – came in to pay for the fuel, I asked her about the cat. She told me that she had picked it up at her uncle’s vacated apartment and was taking her to be euthanized. The cat had been abandoned at the apartment. She weighed four pounds at one year of age. My heart melt. Needless to say, she came home with me in that dreary fall day in 2007. She saw me through nursing school, a move to Florida (and back), and was a true, loving companion. It was heartbreaking to have to put her down in October of 2021 due to her irreversible kidney disease. |