Katie Vaca

But I had to make a decision.

I was falling in love with this rude cat guy, and Frank came along with him.

So I decided to learn about Frank.

And as I learned about him, my fear started to lessen, and we developed a bond.

He would greet me at the door when I would walk in and roll around on his back.

It was pretty cute.

I would give him my shoes to indulge his weird shoe fetish.

He would meow and scratch incessantly at my door at four in the morning to let me know he wanted his food bowl topped off.

And as time went on, our bond grew stronger and he really became my first cat friend.

In 2015, I got a call from a dear childhood friend of mine, Matt.

And I don't have enough time to tell you all the things I'd like to tell you about Matt, but I'd like to highlight my favorite qualities about him.

Magnetic, hilarious, intelligent, and I love to spend time with him.

And I'll never forget it, I was pacing around IKEA as he was explaining to me that he hadn't been feeling well and he went to the doctor and they discovered that his colon was covered in tumors and he was diagnosed with a really aggressive form of colon cancer.

And I know there's many of you out there that can empathize with the feeling of your gut dropping and desperately wanting to do or say something to make something go away and there's nothing.

He had a girlfriend that uprooted her life in Los Angeles to be here with him during his course of treatment.

And I started to feel a real push and pull.

The push of wanting to spend all the time that I could with my friend and tell him everything I was thinking and feeling, and the pull of not wanting to be intrusive during a sensitive time.

I didn't want to take away time that he could be spending with other people, and I did not want to remind my friend that he was sick.

So I was reserved to keeping it really light and checking in, hey, how's it going?

Thinking of you, praying for you, let me know if you need anything.