{"id":57088,"date":"2025-08-05T20:18:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T00:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=57088"},"modified":"2025-08-05T20:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T00:18:11","slug":"dear-mom-and-dad-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/08\/05\/dear-mom-and-dad-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Mom and Dad,"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I died today. You got tired of me and took me to the Polk County Animal Shelter. They were overcrowded and didn\u2019t have space for me. They killed me and sold my body for $10. Some other kitty will get the barely used bed you left. I was scared and confused, but the lady petted me softly before she sent me to the Rainbow Bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Would I still be home if I hadn\u2019t clawed on your couch? It was leather, and I didn\u2019t know I wasn\u2019t supposed to scratch on it. I was stretching and exercising my muscles. You forgot to get scratching posts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I still be at home if I hadn\u2019t scratched your hand? I was only playing, and you forgot to buy me toys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I still be at home if I hadn\u2019t brought fleas into the house? Without anti-flea medicine, I couldn\u2019t get them off of me after you left me in the yard for days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I still be at home if I hadn\u2019t meowed? I only said, \u201cI\u2019m scared, I\u2019m lonely, I\u2019m here, I\u2019m here! I want to be your best friend.\u201d I was all alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I still be at home if I had made you happy? Hitting me didn\u2019t make me learn how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I still be at home if you had taken the time to care for me and to teach me not to get on the table and counters? You didn\u2019t pay attention to me after the first week or so, but I spent all my time waiting for you to love me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I died today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love, Your Kitty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I died today. You got tired of me and took me to the Polk County Animal Shelter. They were overcrowded and didn\u2019t have space for me. They killed me and… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57089,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDhcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtOTUtMS53ZWJwP2ZpdD00NzMlMkMzMjgmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJEZWFyIE1vbSBhbmQgRGFkLCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiaGlnaHdheSIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.7igjPVggh9SauiEMeLU6Pad3xBbhqrrpBPqaqFY6ZjgMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":57089,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-95-1.webp","type":"image\/png"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[9342],"class_list":["post-57088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-dear-mom-and-dad"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57090,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57088\/revisions\/57090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}