This is my kitten, Stanley. He was an early Christmas gift, and completely a surprise! it was totally unlike my parents to do something so spontaneous!

A few nights before Christmas, my dad went out. My mom said he was bringing back a surprise. I was thinking along the lines of ice cream.

I'll never forget the moment wahen my dad walked in holding a tiny black and white kitten.

We named him Hunter initially, but he was scared of the dark, so when my mom accidently called him Stanley, it stuck.

Shortly after, on New Year's Eve, I noticed that Stanley was beginnign to have trouble walking. His back legs would wobble. I mentioned it to my mom, and we took him to the vet.

Nothing seemed to be wrong, but when we brought him home, he grew steadily worse. He was losing weight that he couldn't gain back. Soon he weighed less that he did when we'd gotten him, and he could no longer walk without falling after 2 steps.

The vet visits multiplied, but there was no answer until they found a suddenly noticeable heart problem -- and it was killnig him.

I've never been to devastated in my life. We gave him a week to live, a week to let go, until he was sceduled to be humanely euthanized.

Over the course of that week, Stanley deteriorated fast. He would no longer eat, and had to sleep practically under the space heater just to maintain his bidy heat. He could no longer so much as crawl into the litter box.

Losing Stanley was a tragic loss, and one I will never forget, be he opened doors for us to adopt two new cats from that same vet's office: Leo, a Maine Coon, and Cindy, a shorthair.

Here is Stanley before falling ill, hiding his furry face from the camera.