You have to love them enough to let them go. Easy to say. Hard to do.

On a hot sunny Saturday in 2009 (14 years ago today) while doing a radio broadcast from the grand opening of the new Enmark station on Palmetto Bay Road Hilton Head, I was chatting with a listener when I heard a scream. A black SUV was pulling out into traffic and a tiny kitten who clearly had been stowed away inside the chassis had fallen out and was desperately trying to get back. It was 102 degrees and I have no idea how he survived that heat.

As quickly as he appeared he was able to get back inside the undercarriage but we all stopped the driver who, had he continued, would have run over the baby.

Luckily a woman had her daughter’s skateboard in the back of her car. She put it down next to the SUV, and like a garage mechanic slid herself under the car to see if she could find the kitten. She could not. At least not initially. As she was about to give up, she yelled I got it and yanked the terrified cat down. I grabbed it and held onto it for dear life. Enmark gave me a cardboard box into which they made holes for the air to get in. When the event was over, I took him to the vet near my house. He was dehydrated, overheated, and very scared. They cooled him down, gave him fluids, and I took him home until I could get him to a rescue.

Palmetto Animal League said they would take him that week. But by the time they called me and asked if I could bring him in, I told him no. He already had a home.

My vet said he was about 3 weeks old and for the first week or so he would not come out of his litter box. Eventually though he did. Oh yes, I named him Enmark. (His picture at age 3 weeks is at the top of my Facebook page.) He turned out to be loving and friendly and playful, which made it all the more difficult to get the diagnosis of renal failure stage 2 about 6 months ago.

He devoured his prescription food like it was candy which made things easier. But in time the typical symptoms reared their ugly heads—vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhea. It became clear that the best thing I could do to thank him for a life of loving me was to end his misery. That didn’t make doing it any easier. I will miss him so very much. It’s not everyday that you find a friend so devoted to you that they sleep with you in bed, demand some of your ice cream everytime you eat it, and make head butts a regular part of your day.

RIP lover boy. ☹