Cattitude - Episode 299 A Cat’s Tail: The Love, Life & Legacy of Onkyo

<v Speaker 1>Live. This is pet Life Radio. Let's Talk pets.
<v Speaker 2>Hello, Fila and friends and cat levers. Welcome to Cata Tude.
<v Speaker 2>I'm your show host, Michelle bern and today we have
<v Speaker 2>yet another cat book because I love cats and I'm
<v Speaker 2>a voracious reader, and I keep putting these amazing cat
<v Speaker 2>books to share with you. And this story is just incredible.
<v Speaker 2>The author just told such an amazing story. So stay tuned,
<v Speaker 2>we'll be right back.
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<v Speaker 4>Let's talk pets on Cetlife Radio dot com.
<v Speaker 2>Welcome back everyone. I would like to welcome Josephine Spence.
<v Speaker 2>She is the author of A Cat's Tail. Welcome Josephine.
<v Speaker 5>Hello everybody, thank you for having me here.
<v Speaker 2>I'm very happy to have you on. So a Cat's
<v Speaker 2>Tail is about your cat, on Kyo. It's a Japanese name.
<v Speaker 2>But it's interesting how you got that name because it's
<v Speaker 2>told in the book. But hope well might get to that.
<v Speaker 2>Maybe not, we'll see. But the Cat's tell is told
<v Speaker 2>in on Kio's own voice, which you know adds a
<v Speaker 2>lot of warm personality. It makes it it's interesting. Why
<v Speaker 2>did you take it from her voice and rather than
<v Speaker 2>your perspective?
<v Speaker 5>Sure, let me answer that. First of all, this is
<v Speaker 5>my fourth published book. I've written books before, but when
<v Speaker 5>I start to be honest, when I decided to write
<v Speaker 5>the book about on Kio, I started the book with
<v Speaker 5>my voice, and as I was writing it, it just
<v Speaker 5>didn't do her story justice. And I thought to myself,
<v Speaker 5>Onkle had always been a very vocal cat. She would
<v Speaker 5>have loved to tell the story in her own voice.
<v Speaker 5>And when she tells the story, it's going to be
<v Speaker 5>more relatable. So that's when I came up with the idea, Hey,
<v Speaker 5>let's write it in her voice as if she could talk.
<v Speaker 5>After all, she's almost a human to me. And that's why.
<v Speaker 5>And when I wrote first chapter and I said to myself, no,
<v Speaker 5>this book has to be different. Let the cat be
<v Speaker 5>the speaker, because she was intelligent. She's for a wisdom
<v Speaker 5>and so she could tell on the story. That's how
<v Speaker 5>I changed the gear and rewrote the first chapter starting
<v Speaker 5>with a voice, and that's the story.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, thanks. You know I've had five cats. Right now,
<v Speaker 2>I have three, and in my mind, they all have
<v Speaker 2>a certain voice. They each have distinctive personalities. And I
<v Speaker 2>grew up with dogs, and their personalities are you can
<v Speaker 2>tell a little bit easier than cats. Cats take a
<v Speaker 2>little bit of time. And I was kind of tricked
<v Speaker 2>because my first cat, Dennis, is part main coon and
<v Speaker 2>so they're known as the dog of cats, so his personality,
<v Speaker 2>I thought all cats were like that, and then Molly
<v Speaker 2>came along and I realized, no, they're not, and neither
<v Speaker 2>is their sister Charlotte. So Auncio has characteristics in the
<v Speaker 2>book that come across as play and curious and very intellectual.
<v Speaker 2>How much of those traits are actually on Kio and
<v Speaker 2>how many were embellished a little bit?
<v Speaker 5>Sure? I have to say that the Hope book really
<v Speaker 5>is based on real stories that I head her for
<v Speaker 5>nine nearly nineteen years, and we spent almost every day together,
<v Speaker 5>and the stories about her is endless. But I've consciously
<v Speaker 5>only picked stories that are really funny in my mind
<v Speaker 5>and humorous. So I started writing about, you know, the
<v Speaker 5>day when she was born. That part of it is
<v Speaker 5>hearsay from the pet store that we rescue her from,
<v Speaker 5>so exactly how she was born and how she was
<v Speaker 5>transported from an old lady's house to the pet store.
<v Speaker 5>That is based on hearsay because I wasn't there right,
<v Speaker 5>But from the day we met on Kill and adopted her,
<v Speaker 5>the rest of the stories are true. Of course, when
<v Speaker 5>she died, there's a chapter that she was waiting for
<v Speaker 5>me at the Rainbow Bridge that clearly is from my imagination,
<v Speaker 5>because I truly believe a cat had nine lives after
<v Speaker 5>this life, she's waiting for me to come back. So
<v Speaker 5>I would say, from chapter one to chapter twenty, it's
<v Speaker 5>all true story, truly what happened. The cat is intelligent,
<v Speaker 5>there's no to worry about it. On Kile has so
<v Speaker 5>many interesting personalities. In fact, people that know her, my
<v Speaker 5>faithful vet doctor John say that declare Uncle as the
<v Speaker 5>most vocal cat. She talks a lot. She's a thirty
<v Speaker 5>percent man con and there's a twenty five percent of
<v Speaker 5>her being Siamese.
<v Speaker 2>Let me ask this, what made you decide that you
<v Speaker 2>have to write a book about on Kile. What was
<v Speaker 2>there a single memory or moment that just triggered it.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, yes, I have to confess. When my first horse
<v Speaker 5>passed away, my first horse being Freckles, I was devastated
<v Speaker 5>and I wrote a book about him, but I was
<v Speaker 5>too shy to partlish it because I think I thought
<v Speaker 5>to myself, people think I'm crazy and no human should
<v Speaker 5>love an animal as much as that. So I kind
<v Speaker 5>of like regret that I did not publish my book
<v Speaker 5>about my first pet. So the moment I held on
<v Speaker 5>killing my arm, Okay, I'm not going to cry, she
<v Speaker 5>passed away in my arms. And the very last moment
<v Speaker 5>she really looked at me, her eyes was direct, in
<v Speaker 5>direct contact with me. I felt that she told me,
<v Speaker 5>you have to tell my story. Mommy, Mama, Joe, I
<v Speaker 5>love you, you have to tell my story. And that's when
<v Speaker 5>I decided, Yes. The day after we cremated her, I
<v Speaker 5>have to sit down and write her story because she
<v Speaker 5>wanted to be remembered. And the moment she told me
<v Speaker 5>was when she took her last breath. That that is
<v Speaker 5>my gut feel. She directly told me, don't forget about me,
<v Speaker 5>even though I'm gone, I don't love you any less,
<v Speaker 5>don't forget me. So the only way I could remember
<v Speaker 5>her is by writing down her stories. That's the moment
<v Speaker 5>I decided that the story needs to be told.
<v Speaker 2>Well again, it's a beautiful story, and I'm sorry for
<v Speaker 2>your loss. It's always so sad when our fur babes
<v Speaker 2>leave us and they're never on this earth as long
<v Speaker 2>as we want them to be.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, then again, someone told me nineteen years is a bonus.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, And I haven't had a cat pass yet
<v Speaker 2>and my oldest one is seventeen. But I had two
<v Speaker 2>dogs prior and they both lived to be like like
<v Speaker 2>fourteen seven months in like fifteen and years and fourteen
<v Speaker 2>years seven months for what was fifteen years and like
<v Speaker 2>three months. Sometimes that's a bonus for their size too,
<v Speaker 2>So we just have to be grateful for the time
<v Speaker 2>we have with them. And it's so I think it's
<v Speaker 2>so cool, that kind of magical that she looked at
<v Speaker 2>you and you got that message from her, because I
<v Speaker 2>do truly believe we get messages. This is going to
<v Speaker 2>sound crazy to some people, but from the universe, sometimes
<v Speaker 2>from our creatures. We just get these messages and I've
<v Speaker 2>had these experiences that's not totally coutrelated, but I've just
<v Speaker 2>had things that pop into my head and go, why
<v Speaker 2>after all these years when I was trying to figure
<v Speaker 2>this out, this came to me just now. So the
<v Speaker 2>fact that you got the message to write the book
<v Speaker 2>from Anko as she was passing, I think is just amazing. Yep,
<v Speaker 2>let's talk about the bond between cats and their yemen.
<v Speaker 2>So you know, as we're some cat toud listeners were
<v Speaker 2>nuts about cats, and with your book, there are so
<v Speaker 2>many small magical moments, especially you know, living with the
<v Speaker 2>cats so special which have Ancia's everyday miracles stands out
<v Speaker 2>to you most.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know whether I
<v Speaker 5>told you that I did have cancer back in during
<v Speaker 5>the pandemic twenty twenty one, I was diagnosed with Evans
<v Speaker 5>and domeitrium cancer and I knew Uncle knew about it
<v Speaker 5>because what she used to do is when I'm lying
<v Speaker 5>down my bed in great pain, she would come next
<v Speaker 5>to my bed. She had a little bit next to
<v Speaker 5>my bed like most people do, right, and she will
<v Speaker 5>quietly sit next to me with her front paws cross,
<v Speaker 5>just like sphinx.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 5>She would sit there and not staring at me, but
<v Speaker 5>keeping me company. And that's a miracle way of expressing
<v Speaker 5>her love. Her love doesn't need to be loud, she
<v Speaker 5>doesn't have to say a lot, she doesn't have to mail.
<v Speaker 5>If you use present tense story, I still believe she's around.
<v Speaker 5>She did not have to say she loved me. The
<v Speaker 5>fact that she knew that I was suffering. I was
<v Speaker 5>in great pain, and she would sit next to me
<v Speaker 5>and with her front two paws cross just directly across,
<v Speaker 5>just like a person would cross our front to arms,
<v Speaker 5>and she sit next to me and kept me company
<v Speaker 5>without saying a word. And there's one miracles that I
<v Speaker 5>treasure every day. I think she could smell cancers. She
<v Speaker 5>knew I was sick, and her intuition is so accurate.
<v Speaker 5>Her quiet appearance, her sitting close to me, her nudging
<v Speaker 5>her nose at me, and it's her way of saying, hey,
<v Speaker 5>we can get through this cancer thing together. And she did.
<v Speaker 5>And that stands out the most with me.
<v Speaker 2>To be honest, I'm sorry you have to deal with that. Honest,
<v Speaker 2>I hope you're in better help.
<v Speaker 5>Yes, I'm in remission now, I'm in second year of remission,
<v Speaker 5>so I'm blessed.
<v Speaker 2>That's wonderful news. Cats are always they're hard to understand,
<v Speaker 2>but they're people that get cats are insanely in love
<v Speaker 2>with them. Right. Why do you think cats, even though
<v Speaker 2>they're very subtle, you know, they're not like a dog
<v Speaker 2>that jumps out. And I keep going to dogs because
<v Speaker 2>most people have dogs or cats are both. Dogs are
<v Speaker 2>very you know, you see their emotion whatever. Cats once
<v Speaker 2>they get past the kitten stage, are more stoic creatures.
<v Speaker 2>Why do you think they you know? And she ates
<v Speaker 2>such a powerful love from their humans.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah.
<v Speaker 5>To be honest, though, I'm so allergic to cat and
<v Speaker 5>I was elected to Earth, so I wouldn't say that
<v Speaker 5>I'm totally I did not fall in love with her
<v Speaker 5>right at the beginning. She was my daughter's cat. That's
<v Speaker 5>confession number one. But because uncle loved me in a
<v Speaker 5>very regal is the word I can I can use.
<v Speaker 5>She's very elegant. She's not demanding in the sense she
<v Speaker 5>doesn't always buck me for attention. But when she chose
<v Speaker 5>to be with me, she really did spend time with me.
<v Speaker 5>It's like a sacred trust. You know, you feel that
<v Speaker 5>this little animal has so much trust in me. And
<v Speaker 5>she did not have to say much, she did not
<v Speaker 5>have to mel much or shout. She would just you know,
<v Speaker 5>quietly come nudging next to me and just say, hey,
<v Speaker 5>I want to cuddle. And her love to me is
<v Speaker 5>the strongest emotional connection. It's it's almost like unspoken kind
<v Speaker 5>of love. It's just like when you're looking at her.
<v Speaker 5>She she's very knowing, she's very intelligent. She is almost perfectly,
<v Speaker 5>very intuitive when I'm sad, When I was, you know,
<v Speaker 5>going through tough time, she knew it before everybody. So
<v Speaker 5>her love to me is unconditional provided I feed her,
<v Speaker 5>I guess.
<v Speaker 2>But there's always something right. They are very loyal to
<v Speaker 2>the hand that feeds them. We're almost at a break,
<v Speaker 2>but before we get there, what would you say is
<v Speaker 2>one of the lessons that on Gar taught you, as
<v Speaker 2>far as like a life lesson.
<v Speaker 5>You're gonna laugh when I answer this question. The best
<v Speaker 5>thing that she ever taught me is to rest, sleep,
<v Speaker 5>nap and sleep, because that's what I learned from her.
<v Speaker 5>I was a very fast going, high power executive. I
<v Speaker 5>didn't know how to slow down. But when I had
<v Speaker 5>time and spend my time with Ankle, I learned that
<v Speaker 5>life is not about dashing around three hundred miles an hour.
<v Speaker 5>You need to sit back and enjoy your cat, or
<v Speaker 5>your dog, or your parakeet whatever. She taught me how
<v Speaker 5>to rest, and that is the biggest and most valuable
<v Speaker 5>lesson I ever learned from kill. She told me how
<v Speaker 5>to rest, like you know, im pressing.
<v Speaker 2>Hey, the more I read online about how sleep is
<v Speaker 2>like one of the top things you need to make
<v Speaker 2>sure you get enough of, so cats definitely have something
<v Speaker 2>They've gotten that right well.
<v Speaker 5>According to on Kyle, nep is a very important job.
<v Speaker 2>You've got to know how to do it well exactly. Well,
<v Speaker 2>we're going to take a short break and we'll be
<v Speaker 2>right back.
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<v Speaker 1>Let's talk about Let's done, pet talk about radio headline Radio.
<v Speaker 6>Pet Life Radio dot com.
<v Speaker 2>Welcome back everyone. We are talking with Josephine Spence, the
<v Speaker 2>author of a Cat's Tale, which is about her cat
<v Speaker 2>uncle and not just about her cat, but what she
<v Speaker 2>learned from her cat, what her cat taught her. And
<v Speaker 2>we talked about some of the book in the beginning
<v Speaker 2>of the show. Now we're going to talk about, you know,
<v Speaker 2>continuing your cat's love because the past there's a passage
<v Speaker 2>about feeling Onkio's presence even after she passed on. That
<v Speaker 2>is really moving. How did you approach writing that and
<v Speaker 2>you know, a way that felt honest and respectful and
<v Speaker 2>true to the story.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, Michelle, I truly believe that you cannot make grief pretty.
<v Speaker 5>There's nothing pretty pet lost grief. I did not make
<v Speaker 5>it pretty. I cried when I had to cry. I
<v Speaker 5>wrote it the way it came. Row very inconveny. Sometime
<v Speaker 5>I'll be crying in the middle of petting a traffic jam,
<v Speaker 5>and I would cry in the middle of shopping. You know,
<v Speaker 5>some hid the feelings overwhelming. I didn't make it pretty.
<v Speaker 5>I wrote it the way. It was one of her
<v Speaker 5>stories that when I was driving to my yoga and
<v Speaker 5>there's a time in front of me, it has a
<v Speaker 5>cat decoration on the windscreen wiper, and I say, oh,
<v Speaker 5>my goodness, auncle is sending me message after she passed.
<v Speaker 5>So I wrote it the way I saw it. It's
<v Speaker 5>about flickers of comfort. You know, you just know that
<v Speaker 5>even your cat had passed, she came back to check
<v Speaker 5>on me, and I felt her presence. People might say
<v Speaker 5>I'm crazy, but I sometimes I thought I heard her.
<v Speaker 5>Sometimes I felt that the paint is just too much.
<v Speaker 5>It almost hurted to breathe after you lose a cat,
<v Speaker 5>especially one that's been with you for nineteen years. I
<v Speaker 5>can hope that by being able to feel her, it
<v Speaker 5>turns my sorrow into hope. I truly believe she's going
<v Speaker 5>to come back to me another eight times, because she
<v Speaker 5>did nine lives right.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah. I wrote it the way it came, and my
<v Speaker 5>book is conversational. I wrote it the way exactly how
<v Speaker 5>I felt it.
<v Speaker 2>I like that style of writing. That's my favorite. Let's
<v Speaker 2>talk more about grief. Some people have said when they've
<v Speaker 2>lost their fur babes that you know, over time the
<v Speaker 2>grief has eased up a bit. I lost one of
<v Speaker 2>my fur babes five years ago, one twenty years ago.
<v Speaker 2>Those were both dogs. The two cats that we lost
<v Speaker 2>were outdoor cats that we took care of, so there
<v Speaker 2>wasn't quite the same as they either. We didn't have
<v Speaker 2>them as long, maybe four years, five years, but they
<v Speaker 2>were outdoor because they were feral. So I've had more
<v Speaker 2>of that experience of grief with losing dogs. Although I'm
<v Speaker 2>a little scared because Dennis is getting up there, although
<v Speaker 2>he's more robust than his younger sisters. So what would
<v Speaker 2>you say if people have said grief softens, how has
<v Speaker 2>that been true for you?
<v Speaker 5>No? No, I don't think grief will ever be softened.
<v Speaker 5>It might become quieter, right, So, for example, the first
<v Speaker 5>week after she passed, I literally could not function. I
<v Speaker 5>cried for a little thing like I find a piece
<v Speaker 5>of fur on my sweater. I found her snot on
<v Speaker 5>the wall. You know, it's just not Yeah, she used
<v Speaker 5>to sneeze a lot.
<v Speaker 2>Oh wow, think gets flooding noses.
<v Speaker 5>So I know, I think in the beginning that I
<v Speaker 5>would say the grief, the pain was very sharp. It's
<v Speaker 5>almost take your breath away when you think of her.
<v Speaker 5>You stop, and then your tears would just slud it out,
<v Speaker 5>you know. So I would say a few months later
<v Speaker 5>it becomes softer. It's almost like a tender bruise. Right,
<v Speaker 5>it hasn't gone away, but when you press it still hurt.
<v Speaker 5>I can't say this will go away because I truly
<v Speaker 5>live on Kire so much I think she'll be with
<v Speaker 5>me until I see her again. I don't think grief
<v Speaker 5>has a timeline. There isn't such a thing that by
<v Speaker 5>month too, you're gonna feel better. My month three, you're
<v Speaker 5>gonna forget about your cat. No, that's not gonna work
<v Speaker 5>because grief. Grief is basically love that has no where
<v Speaker 5>to lend, and I have no way to lend is
<v Speaker 5>love I have for her, and I'm not going to
<v Speaker 5>adopt another cat. I'm not ready. I have no way
<v Speaker 5>to give away my love from Onkio to anyone at
<v Speaker 5>the moment. So I grieve. I grieve every day. It's
<v Speaker 5>not really easier. I have not seen or touch of
<v Speaker 5>cat since her passing. I cannot bring myself to do that.
<v Speaker 2>It's interesting some people need to adopt another, you know,
<v Speaker 2>pet right away. That was the case with my first one.
<v Speaker 2>With my it's different because I had cats already and
<v Speaker 2>because of lifestyle changes that kept me from adopting another dog.
<v Speaker 2>Although I'm very tempted, But I know some people just
<v Speaker 2>can't bear to go through that grief again. How do
<v Speaker 2>you help? This book supports readers that are navigating the
<v Speaker 2>loss of their own feline.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, my readers. First of all, they have to learn
<v Speaker 5>pet grief is true, is genuine, It's not a pretend feeling.
<v Speaker 5>It is there. Give yourself the permission to feel everything.
<v Speaker 5>When you read my book. You can laugh, you can cry,
<v Speaker 5>you can feel the love you have gratitude that you
<v Speaker 5>have the chance to have with your pet. I want
<v Speaker 5>my reader to know that their feelings and emotions are validated.
<v Speaker 5>There's no such thing as oh, it's only a cat,
<v Speaker 5>you'll get over it. No, don't let people tell you that.
<v Speaker 5>And to be honest, I cry more when aunt you
<v Speaker 5>pass away than my mother who passed away two years ago.
<v Speaker 5>I truly did. They're part of family, so you are
<v Speaker 5>not alone. If you're sad and crying over your pet.
<v Speaker 5>That grief is very pure, it's very simple. It's the
<v Speaker 5>echo of the love that you had with your pet,
<v Speaker 5>and it's deep, and it's worth celebrating. And don't deny
<v Speaker 5>yourself that. Don't deny yourself to think of your pet,
<v Speaker 5>to laugh, to cry. All those emotions are validated.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, and healthy to express.
<v Speaker 5>Totally, totally. Psychology will say you need a grief.
<v Speaker 1>You do.
<v Speaker 2>You do like you said in your way, in your timeline,
<v Speaker 2>and I don't think the beings that leave us, whether
<v Speaker 2>they're two lagged or four lagged, the grief, it never
<v Speaker 2>goes away. It might get for some of us, it might,
<v Speaker 2>you know, get a little quieter, but it's there. Sometimes
<v Speaker 2>it comes up and weird place times, and I've experienced that,
<v Speaker 2>I've heard other people experience it. But it's yeah, it's
<v Speaker 2>never quite gone. Josephine, you also told some really cute,
<v Speaker 2>you know, cute little story or on Kio. Well, you
<v Speaker 2>told the stories, but in unki bo voice, So I say,
<v Speaker 2>an Kio told us some stories about some interesting things.
<v Speaker 2>What was one of your favorites? Okay, funniest, the funniest story.
<v Speaker 5>I think the funniest story about on Kio is her
<v Speaker 5>love for Christmas trees, Christmas decoration, her relationship with my husband.
<v Speaker 5>In the book, we call him Dada because that's what
<v Speaker 5>my daughter to call my husband Dada. So I imagine
<v Speaker 5>Ankle would call my husband Dada too. They have this
<v Speaker 5>very complex love hate relationship. On Kle loved Christmas. She
<v Speaker 5>would die under the Christmas tree if she had a choice.
<v Speaker 5>Every year, when my husband lights up the Christmas tree,
<v Speaker 5>on Kile would be the first one to go underneath it,
<v Speaker 5>thinking it's some sort of spy.
<v Speaker 6>You know.
<v Speaker 5>The Christmas when my husband decided to put a second
<v Speaker 5>tree on his desk, he put out the most expensive
<v Speaker 5>family German hand blown nutcracker ornament. Unkle jumped on it.
<v Speaker 5>When everybody went to bed, Oh my god, the whole
<v Speaker 5>house was like a Third World war zone. My husband
<v Speaker 5>went berserk on Kile was scolded. She was hiding the
<v Speaker 5>corner because she just broke. Basically, she broke Klara's lake
<v Speaker 5>and crushed Prince Nutcracker's nut and poked out you know,
<v Speaker 5>Drossamaya's second eye. And the damage was quite intense on
<v Speaker 5>the decoration. That almost spoiled out Christmas. But in the
<v Speaker 5>sense what I look back, it was hilarious. It was funny.
<v Speaker 5>It was the funniest thing she ever did with jumping
<v Speaker 5>on the Christmas tree, the second Christmas tree on my
<v Speaker 5>husband's desk. And I'm sure both uncle and my husband
<v Speaker 5>hated each other that moment.
<v Speaker 2>That is funny. And I have to say, and it's
<v Speaker 2>tragic in a sense because she destroyed family heirlooms and
<v Speaker 2>those you know, they're meaningful. But I have to say
<v Speaker 2>that becoming a pet parent, and I did that. I
<v Speaker 2>started years ago. I had you know, pets is a child.
<v Speaker 2>But this when I started becoming a pet parent, I
<v Speaker 2>really learned the value of things versus furbabes.
<v Speaker 5>Yep, yep, They're never wrong, Michelle. Kats are never wrong.
<v Speaker 5>They're always right right.
<v Speaker 2>The shoe, the phone, I mean, my first one chewed
<v Speaker 2>up everything. It was incredible. What's the most important?
<v Speaker 4>You know?
<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right, I have to buy another pair of
<v Speaker 2>shoes or yes, it was an heirloom. But you know,
<v Speaker 2>you can't take it with you. So my dog doesn't
<v Speaker 2>know that, or my cat doesn't know that. You're not
<v Speaker 2>supposed to claw the everything they want, and they want
<v Speaker 2>a claw, even if you have seventeen or more, you know,
<v Speaker 2>cat trees or you know, things for them to use.
<v Speaker 2>I can't think of the word right now, but you
<v Speaker 2>guys know.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, your possession you can't take with you. So what
<v Speaker 5>your cat broke it by another one?
<v Speaker 2>So Josephine, if UNKI can give listeners one piece of wisdom,
<v Speaker 2>what do you think she would share?
<v Speaker 5>You know what? She'll probably wink eyes and sit, nap often,
<v Speaker 5>eat well, love unconditionally. That's what she would say. And
<v Speaker 5>always get her way. She must get her Fila mignon
<v Speaker 5>because she loves it. She would tell people to rest
<v Speaker 5>and eat well. I think those are the two key
<v Speaker 5>messages that she would give you.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, kind of like take care of yourself. I like that, yep, selfless.
<v Speaker 2>So you have a cat lobbing audience listening. What message
<v Speaker 2>do you hope listeners get from reading your book.
<v Speaker 5>I'm hoping to get the center mix of messages here
<v Speaker 5>of mainly comfort from your pet, joy and great memories.
<v Speaker 5>They should always feel that there's nothing wrong with, you know,
<v Speaker 5>taking in the afternoon away from your laptop from work,
<v Speaker 5>put your phone away, and coll up with your cat
<v Speaker 5>in your chest. There's nothing wrong with that. And because
<v Speaker 5>when they're gone, you're going to miss that. And there's
<v Speaker 5>nothing wrong having your cat waking you up at three
<v Speaker 5>am and ask for breakfast. It's something magical. I will
<v Speaker 5>cut my right arm, I will give you my kidneys
<v Speaker 5>just to have her waiting yet one more time. Honestly, Michelle,
<v Speaker 5>I miss this cat so much. She was my alarm
<v Speaker 5>clock for nineteen years.
<v Speaker 2>There's no words. You can't explain it. But it's wonderful
<v Speaker 2>that you wrote this book. To keep her memory alive. Yes, okay,
<v Speaker 2>So where can our listeners find your book? And do
<v Speaker 2>you think Uncle has any more tales left to tell?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah?
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, that's a great question. Let me answer the first
<v Speaker 5>question first. You can get this book from Amazon. It's
<v Speaker 5>out there, and also it is recorded by a professional
<v Speaker 5>voice actor. Her name happened to be Kitty Kitty j
<v Speaker 5>And the audiobooks is available about on one hundred plus
<v Speaker 5>distribution channels, from Spotify to Audible books Now it's everywhere
<v Speaker 5>Apple and Google. You can get the book the audiobook
<v Speaker 5>and it's also available in kindle as well. So if
<v Speaker 5>you want paper book, you get it from Amazon. You
<v Speaker 5>go to Amazon, type in the books by Josephine Spence.
<v Speaker 5>My books will pop up. And that's how easy it is.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, thank you.
<v Speaker 5>I also donated the audiobooks to library as well. If
<v Speaker 5>you prefer not to buy the book and listen for
<v Speaker 5>you can't get it from a library namely Libby and Hoopler.
<v Speaker 5>In your local library, you'll find the book too.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, thank you. And any more k Tales on the Horizon.
<v Speaker 5>Michelle, Yes, yes, and yes on Kio had nine lives.
<v Speaker 5>In fact, I started writing part two of her story.
<v Speaker 5>Of course, when she passed away, the second book will
<v Speaker 5>become fictional rather than real story. I had imagined that
<v Speaker 5>she came back to me as a completely different cat,
<v Speaker 5>and on Kill's story is never ending. And I have
<v Speaker 5>started my fifth book about her returning to me because
<v Speaker 5>I'm not able to get over losing her, to feel
<v Speaker 5>like the only way that I can connect to her
<v Speaker 5>is keep writing about her. That's my therapy. So yes,
<v Speaker 5>there's a part two of onkile story, maybe part three,
<v Speaker 5>part four as well. So here we go. As I said,
<v Speaker 5>the name Onkile means echo, and her love is echoing
<v Speaker 5>all over me, and she hasn't left. And all I
<v Speaker 5>could say is that in reality, she may have left me,
<v Speaker 5>and yet she's so utterly with me. That is the
<v Speaker 5>only way I could discube oh I feel about huh?
<v Speaker 2>You know you're echoing some of the emotions that I've
<v Speaker 2>heard from a lot of people that have been uncatitude,
<v Speaker 2>and a lot of them are you know, cat parents,
<v Speaker 2>and a lot of stories from my listeners. So cat
<v Speaker 2>people have a very strong love for their cats, very deep.
<v Speaker 2>It's just different, it really is. Josephine. I want to
<v Speaker 2>thank you so much for coming on Catituded, and I
<v Speaker 2>can't wait for a part two. So thank you so much.
<v Speaker 5>Thank you Michelle.
<v Speaker 2>I hope you enjoyed this show. I want to again
<v Speaker 2>thank Josephine Spence for coming on Catitude and talking about
<v Speaker 2>her book, A Cat's Tale. It is available in many
<v Speaker 2>many places. I hope you take time to read it.
<v Speaker 2>It is a really good book. I want to thank
<v Speaker 2>my cat crew who patiently slept around me as I
<v Speaker 2>read her book. So thank you Dennis, Charlotte and Mollie.
<v Speaker 2>And of course the show would not be the same
<v Speaker 2>without the magic of my producer. Thank you so much,
<v Speaker 2>Mark Winter for all you do to make our shows
<v Speaker 2>sound amazing. This is episode two hundred ninety nine. Wow,
<v Speaker 2>So thank you for listening to Catatude for all of
<v Speaker 2>these episodes, all of these years. Now stay tuned for
<v Speaker 2>episode three hundred. I have a special celebrity guest. You
<v Speaker 2>know her from television. She is amazing. She's doing some
<v Speaker 2>incredible things coming up for animals, and she is such
<v Speaker 2>a catlever. You will not want to miss episode three
<v Speaker 2>hundred and hey lose to Attitude, have Cataitude.
<v Speaker 4>Let's talk pets every week on demand only on Petlight
<v Speaker 4>Radio dot com.
<v Speaker 1>FO