My husband found Mia when he was about two months old, abandoned by his mother cat in the warehouse at her workplace. For days, there had been constant meowing coming from the warehouse. Eventually, my husband couldn’t bear it anymore, went to look, and found him. He was trapped between metal bars, had a wound on his neck, and was crying.

We took him to the veterinarian. The vet incorrectly identified him as female, so we named him Mia. Later, we found out that Mia was actually male, but we didn’t change the name. He remained Mia.

After that, my husband took care of Mia at his shop. At the time, we didn’t have a cat at home, and my husband didn’t really want one. Sometimes we brought Mia home, but he didn’t want to stay indoors; Mia loved his freedom.

Mia was like the neighborhood bad-ass. He wouldn’t let any other cats come near our house or my husband’s shop.

When he turned one year old, he started marking everywhere, including on the neighbors’ doors. When he was about 1.5 years old, we had Mia neutered. After that, he would go into the house, out into the garden, and occasionally to my husband’s shop.

One day, we noticed that he was sick. At the vet, we learned that he had contracted coronavirus. He received treatment for 15 days. During that time, we took him into the house. He didn’t want to stay indoors and even broke the television twice because he thought it was a window. Still, we didn’t let him outside. He loved his freedom, but he also loved us, and we loved him very much. He had become everything to us.