Alabama - January 14, 2008

It started many years ago, but it reached the breaking point just this last Saturday. Maybe I should say that I reached MY breaking point with humans.

What are the issues that I have with humans? I will completely spell it out to every human out there. You may not like what I am about to tell you or say, so you need to be prepared for the honest truth. Only you will know if this is about you. Only you will know if you are one of the humans who are to blame for this or if you are one of the great humans who deserve reverence.

Who am I? I’m not a celebrity or a Doctor or Lawyer. I have a Degree in computers; however, I am no longer able to work due to a disabling condition. I am an artist and love to paint, but basically I’m nobody important. I am, however, one of the richest humans on earth because I have a heart and give it freely, I care, and I love. I will give some background about insignificant me.

I grew up in the country of upstate New York. My wonderful, loving father, Donald LaCoe, dedicated his life to raising his two little girls as a single parent. Daddy was an animal lover, and I was to grow up just like him. When we were little, we had many pets; a woodchuck, two raccoons, a skunk, many cats, many dogs, horses, ducks, birds, chipmunks, and squirrels. As I grew older, my favorite animal turned out to be cats. Cat of all kinds, including the most magnificent of all cats, the Bengal Tiger.

Throughout my 50 years of life, I’ve had numerous cats, including a Persian, Funny, who lived to be 19 years old. I have an uncanny knack of attracting animals, be them wild, neighbor’s animals, or strays. When living in Florida, I attracted three adult ducks, of which two mated and gave me 6 baby ducklings. I had the hardest time trying to keep them alive because they kept falling off the wall into the canal. I had to swim across the canal one day to save a duckling that had fallen off and was following mama. I got to her just as she was going under. After that I took them to a wildlife sanctuary. I have also attracted numerous raccoons, a muskrat, two mice, numerous cats (other than my own indoor cats), and numerous other animals.

Right now, I have seven strictly indoor cats that are the most wonderful additions to my life. My husband, Mike, says they are not my pets or animals, they are my children. He is SO right! Of the seven, five are rescued. Puddin was barely 6 weeks old when Mike rescued her from the steel company he worked for. Something had fallen on her breaking a couple of her ribs, and she was skin and bones. He brought her to me, and I rushed her to our most wonderful Veterinarian. He verified that she was fine, so I took her home to nurse her back to health. She was just a scrawny, wired hair little thing that fit in my pocket many times. She has grown up to be one of the most treasured children of my life. She has the most beautiful silky coat I have ever seen. She literally kisses me on the lips just like humans kiss (without the tongue). When I am outdoors or out of her site, she calls for me by calling me “mama”. This is NOT a joke, she really does! I also feed five strays at my home.

Mike then brought home a cat from his work that was pregnant. Due to the issues that I have with humans, I decided to keep the babies and they are now my children also. Every one of my children is completely cherished with each one of them having their own unique personalities. My children look to their “mama” for everything. They love cantaloupe, peaches, salad, peanut butter and jelly, and other things that cats normally wouldn’t eat, but since mama eats it, they eat it also. I could go on forever about my children, but you get the idea.

The issue that has taken its toll on me this last weekend has put me over the edge, to the point where I feel it is now necessary to write this to bring it to the attention of all humans. What do I expect to accomplish by writing this? Things have to change and the only way they will change is to put it in people’s faces. We, as humans, need an eye opener to make humans realize that the uncaring, the uncompassionate, the insensitive, callous, and heartless nature of humans has to stop. I can only hope and pray that my words will reach as many humans as possible, and that it will reach out to those who know they are the individual humans to whom I am referring to, in the hopes that you will change this issue.

Saturday at 2 P.M., I was on my way home from shopping. I was travelling pretty fast when I came across a little orange kitten lying dead in the road. My heart skipped, as it always does, whenever I see any poor animal that’s been murdered by a human in a car. As I drove by her, she lifted her head and looked at me. I suddenly heard the most frightening, horrifying scream that I’ve ever heard in my life, and then I realized that it was me who was screaming! I locked up the brakes, but it took a ways to stop. I jumped out, threw off my shoes, and ran down the middle of the road as fast as I could run. I was waving off cars to keep them from finishing her off by crushing her.

I got to her and she looked at me letting out the tiniest little meow. It looked like the human had ran over her body and she couldn’t move. I very gently slid my hands under her, and picked her up. I expected her to lash out at me in pain, but she just let me run her back to my car. I placed her on the floor, turned on the heat, and floored it to my Vets office 12 miles away. I was shaking so bad, I could barely hold my cell phone to call him. I called and left a panicked message, giving him Mike’s cell number, not mine. I got to his office and realized I gave him the wrong number. I called back, but not thinking and in tears, I gave him Mike’s number again. I looked up and there he was. He got the first message and had rushed to his office.

He picked her up and took her into the exam room. He looked her over, listened to her insides, and told me that there didn’t seem to be any extensive damage. He said she had obviously been struck in the head and he could tell that she had a bad concussion. He said that she had been so extremely neglected, that she had no muscle in her body what-so-ever. She was skin stretched over bones which is what happens when an animal has starved for so long that the body eats itself. On top of that, she was extremely ill and could barely breathe from the congestion she had. He gave her a shot for pain, and a shot to try to help her get better from the cold or whatever she had.

Then I got the big question. He asked me if I was able to take her in and give her the TLC that she needed. He said he couldn’t take her because he had too many animals to care for. He said he couldn’t put her on the street. I immediately said, of course I would take her! That was like asking me if I wanted to take my next breath. When I stopped to save her, the thought of whether I was going to keep her or not, never crossed my mind. There was no doubt in my heart or mind that she would be mine.

We wrapped her in a towel and I held her all the way home. I set her up in one of the bedrooms with food and water, her own little bed, and kept her wrapped in the towel. She didn’t want any water or food, so I let her rest. I kept checking on her every few minutes. I was loving her, petting her, and rubbing her ears, and then she started to purr. I was ecstatic! About an hour later she actually crawled out of the towel and started to eat. I was so thrilled, I was in tears. We were on the road to recovery!

Around 7:30 P.M., I heard this gut wrenching sound that pierced right straight through me, and I knew immediately what it was. I ran into the bedroom and there she was…dying. She had tried to fight it and had thrown herself out of her bed. She was thrashing on the floor trying to get a breath. I screamed and tried so hard to get her to breathe. I tried everything, but she let out one last horrendous scream and then she was gone.

I cannot tell you how atrocious it was to see her go through that gruesome death. I screamed, I cried, I yelled, I held her, and told her how sorry I was that I couldn’t save her, over and over. I thought she was going to make it when she started to eat and purr. I got angry, very, very angry! The human who hit her should have been the one here to witness the agonizing death that she went through. That human should have been forced to watch as her lips and mouth turn pure white from the lack of blood, and her tongue turn black and twist up as she fought for her breath. That human should have been the one who watched her lose her bodily functions. That human should have been the one who had to pick up that cold, hard, little body and wrap her in a towel, and then be forced to go out and dig a grave to put her in.

There was absolutely NO reason for this to happen. If humans were more caring, more compassionate, more sensitive, and HAD A HEART, these kinds of senseless deaths wouldn’t happen. If humans gave just a little thought to their own animals, and to homeless animals, the death of completely innocent animals would be lessened greatly.

The human who hit her is the most evil kind of human on this earth. For those who are so ignorant that they need the reason why spelled out to them, here is the reason why. This human used his or her vehicle as a murder weapon, and then didn’t even bother to look back to see if he or she actually finished the job! Think about that supremely appalling act! Think about it being turned around and have it be a human that was struck by a car, and the human just driving off because it didn’t matter…it’s just a life. Who cares! How many hit and runs happen on a daily basis to humans? It’s a major issue when it comes to humans, but it doesn’t matter when it’s an animal!! What about them? What about their life being taken from them? What about their suffering from an agonizing death, be it from being hit by a human or be it from starving to death because humans can’t be bothered to throw them their scraps of food? What does it matter? It’s just an animal, right?

Well it DOES matter! It’s a life, no matter whether it’s human or animal. We were all created by God! We were all given life, we were all given feelings, we were all given pain, and we were all given death. Why should the death of animals be any different than our own deaths? Why should the death of animals be any less important or hurt less? Where would we humans be without animals? Yes, even cats!

If it wasn’t for cats, we would be overrun with mice, rats, endless kinds of insects, lizards, birds etc. Every animal on this earth has a purpose, and every human should thank their lucky stars that we have them. But no, you abuse them, neglect them, ignore them, starve them, and senselessly murder them.

What is there on this earth that will give a human total unconditional love? Animals! Even humans can’t and don’t give unconditional love to another human being! But animals do, every day! Cats are extremely intelligent, extremely loving, extremely faithful, and extremely forgiving. Can humans even compare to animals, and do all of the above? NO! What other animal can be litter trained at 4 weeks old, even when they are barely walking? What, other than animals, can be disciplined and come back to love you in 2 minutes? Even animals that are abused and neglected will still go to their owner to try to give love, and to try to get the love they need so badly themselves.

What exactly do animals ask from us? Not a whole lot! They want and need love, just like humans do. They want and need food and water to sustain their life, just like humans do. That’s it!! That’s all they ask. Is that just too much to ask of us humans? Apparently it IS too much to ask of many people of the human race.

How hard is it to turn your wheel to miss that innocent animal on the road? How hard is it to stop to check the animal, if you can’t possibly avoid hitting it? How hard is it to take the animal to a vet to try to save its life? After all, YOU just hit it! How hard is it to take your scraps from your meals to give to your animals or to give to homeless animals? How hard is it to buy a few cans of cat food to feed the homeless animals in your area or at your workplace? How hard is it to actually have a heart and care for the animals in our world?

We live in the greatest country in the world. Food is in abundance, and what do most of you do? You throw out vast amounts of food that could go to feed your own animals or many, many homeless animals. If you have forgotten about the baby I tried to save, you need to reread the above. She was so starved that her body was eating itself! There was a large business where I found her in the road with many employees. It wouldn’t have taken much for any one of those employees to have a heart and feed this little girl. Scraps from breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner, anything would have kept her from suffering the way she did.

I was so incredibly angry; I went to that business on Monday. I didn’t expect anyone to admit that they owned the baby, but I was determined to tell them what had happened. Truth be told, I really wanted to rip someone’s head off! I told them the story, and that I would come and get any other strays that are there to try to save their lives, so I left my name and phone number.

As I stated above, I was taken out of work seven years ago with a disability. I get very little from SSD. My husband has to travel in order for us to survive. We’re lucky if he gets home for a day or two every three weeks or so. My son was in a near-fatal car accident and is in a Nursing Home now. They just had a stray have 6 kittens, so I called to tell them that I will come there to rescue them also. The POINT I am trying to make is, even with our financial situation, we STILL have seven cats, and 5 strays that we feed outdoors, and we STILL do everything we can to feed other strays and to rescue them. So WHY can’t other humans help out even just a little bit by saving your scraps and giving it to animals??? It’s just SO frustrating! If we can do it, others can do it too! Animals that are outdoors, especially the homeless, need food to keep them warm in the winter.

Humans are the most heartless, selfish, uncaring, inconsiderate species on this earth. I pray that some of you will read this and open your heart to the wonderful creatures that God has graced us with. I pray that you have recognized yourself as one of these problem humans, and that you will take it upon yourself to notice animals that are suffering. I pray that you will take the steps necessary to lessen the pain and suffering of these animals by giving them your scraps of your food, and a little bit of love. Food is the sustenance of life…all life.