Dear God,

I know we don’t talk much, and you know that’s because I never ask for trifling things like a CD player, or to make the light so I don’t get stuck at Alma. I ask your attention when I need you, and I need you now.

Mimi is sick again, and I know it’s not in some fucking stupid plan for the world. I will not learn anything from her illness or death but how to suffer, and I think I have done plenty of that in my life. I guess when I am praying I shouldn’t say “fucking”, but you know me, so…anyway.

I talked to the doctor tonight and he said she is really sick, some kind of liver problem and thyroid thing like last time, so I am scared now, for my oldest baby. Really, really scared.

I don’t want you to remove that fear, because it is mine, completely, and it is born out of the love I have for her. No fear means no love, so please leave it. I ask only a very few things, and I think since I don’t often ask anything of you, maybe you could listen to me this once.

I ask that she be free from pain and suffering. She is just a good, sweet, precious cat, wise beyond her years, and she doesn’t deserve to hurt. She comes to other’s aid when they are hurting. If you take Mecca away, who will come purr for me when I cry?

I ask that you give me the strength to do what is right for her, even if it means putting her to sleep. I feel crazy-dizzy thinking about how empty our lives will be without her, especially Taylor’s. But I have known for years that someday she would be taken from me, and I hope that it isn’t now.

I ask that if there is treatment for her that it not be beyond my ability to pay for it, because that would be the cruellest torture of all, to have treatment within sight, but be unable to afford it.

I ask these things of you, knowing that if you don’t hear my prayer, they will not happen, and maybe they will happen even if you do hear my prayer. But in this desperate moment I pray, as I always have in times of desperation, that things are not as bad as they seem right now, and that it all works out in the end.

Please save my baby.