Muñeca's Story

Meet Muñeca, my 12 year old kitty, who I love and adore with every ounce of my being.

Yesterday I was at lunch with Dan and my family, and while we were talking about a wide variety of things, the story of my kitty Muñeca came up. When I got Muñeca I was only about 10 years old so I honestly was too young for me to either remember being told this story or too young to be told because it's sad and depressing.

Earlier that year my mom got me a guinea pig, and man, I HATED that stinking thing. It would bite us, it was angry, it pooped every 2 minutes, the cage stunk and eventually got maggots in it because I didn't know how to clean it well. It was a disaster. So much for my first real pet that was all mine to take care of! Yes, I was 10, so you can't blame me too much. My grandma saw that I was struggling to take care of that guinea pig (whose name I don't even remember by the way) and she told me one day that she'd trade it to me for a kitty. I thought HELL YES I want a cat so bad, so without thinking too hard about it, I accepted the offer. A few days later grandma brings me a beautiful little baby kitten, covered in black fur from head to toe, small enough to fit comfortably in my hand. She was mine, that's all I cared about. This was SO much better than my baby dolls, I felt like I was caring for a real baby, a living and breathing creature. And so our love began....

Yesterday, however, I learned the real story about Muñeca's background. One of my grandma's friends (Adelaida) who lived in D.C. apparently became very friendly with an alley cat. The poor alley cat was pregnant but had no access to food so Adelaida started to feed her regularly. If you didn't know this already, in D.C. a lot of houses have windows with bars on them, kinda looking like jail almost. The alley cat started climbing in through the bars and would wait for Adelaida to feed her everyday. Finally one day the alley cat gave birth to a bunch of adorable kittens. Soon after the alley cat left with all of her kittens, but my poor Muñeca got STUCK in the window! Either she was too afraid of heights or too scared to leave the comfort of the window sill we will never know, but Adelaida saw the poor little kitten and told Grandma, who then asked me if I wanted to give her a new home.

Little did I know when Muñeca turned up on my door step that she was an abandoned kitten left behind by a D.C. alley cat. When my mom told me this story yesterday, now 12 years later from when that happened, I began to tear up. No wonder Muñeca is so strong, she has been through so much. I'm so thankful to God for bringing her into my life because we have made it through THE WORST. To say that she is my best friend is a huge understatement, because she means so much more to me than that. And now, here we are, in good ol' Harrisonburg, VA on our new adventure together. I just can't wait to continue sharing my life with the one creature on this earth that has always had my unconditional love. Thank you Muñeca for everything you've given me, I hope I have given you enough back.

Love,

Momma Taco