hebbycakes | TIME FOR AN IMPORTANT STORY

This is a phone call I had not 5 minutes ago at the shop I work at: Small Things. (taken from an MSN convo and edited a bit to fit)

I picked up the phone and... this elderly woman answers

She says that she's looking to adopt a cat, and we talk about how our shop runs Adopt a Cat Sunday... And she tells me she's looking for a kitten. I think "pfff of course" but I don't SAY that, I'm good with old people. But I think she somehow knew what I was thinking, and she said "Ah, you see... I had to euthanize my cat just recently." My thoughts? "D: awww..."
But my feelings reached out to her more when she told me that for her, she's an old woman and she gets so lonely, and cats to her are like her children.

So we spoke more and she kept apologizing to me, saying things like "I'm sorry for rambling on about this..." And I was like "No problem! We completely understand." And she told me that she had this cat for twenty years, and that she spent nearly 4000 dollars on her, worth every penny, she said. And that near the end, her cat started to have kidney failure...
And she was recommended to put the cat on special medicine, and was told the cat would have another three years...
But the next monday, she had to put her cat down.

I felt my heart just... shatter. I already have a soft spot in my heart for seniors (I love them so much), and this woman was reaching out to me, and I could just hear it in her voice. She needed to talk to another cat person about this. I could tell this cat wasn't just a pet to her, it was her baby, her child.
She told me that her daughter thinks she's moving too fast in wanting another cat, but this woman told me that at night, she can hear Kibble (I guess that was the cat's name) eating from its food dish. I said "Awww" and she went "No no... It's so hard." And I said I understood, since I've had pets pass away, but thinking on it, I don't know exactly. I've never had a 20 year old pet
that was mine alone... and then have them pass away before me.
So, I was determined to help this woman.
I recommended her to come on Adopt-A-Cat Sunday and speak to Kim or my mother about what to do. I also recommended another place that tends to have kittens, since we don;'t usually carry them.
Afterwards, she told me she was going to do just that, and then thanked me heartily for my time, and we parted communicational ways.
My heart is both warmed and saddened. I'll be praying hard for this woman.