Miso: A Little Man with a Big Heart

Some cats find you. Miso was one of those cats.

On November 8, 2023, I spotted a small kitten on the street in the Peoria, Illinois area. He was approximately six months old, born around July of that year, and already had something about him that was impossible to ignore. I put him in the car and posted on Instagram that I had found a super sweet rescue cat, asking if anyone would give him a home. Everyone who saw that post knew immediately what I hadn’t quite admitted yet: this cat was already home. A couple of hours later, my wife Lydia met him for the first time. We both fell in love on the spot. Just like that, Miso had a family.

He settled in immediately like he had always belonged there. Gentle, playful, endlessly curious, and possessed of the softest fur anyone who met him had ever felt. Friends and strangers alike would reach out to pet him and stop mid-sentence. He felt like cashmere. Everyone said it the moment they touched him. He had a raspy little meow, just a single soft sound, and he used it sparingly but purposefully. He knew how to ask for what he wanted.

And what he wanted, more than anything, was to be near us.

Miso followed Lydia and me from room to room every single day. When we exercised he would walk underneath us during pushups without a second thought. When we opened packages or assembled furniture he was in the middle of it, supervising. When we sat on the couch he would wait patiently for one of us to settle in before curling up beside us, often requesting a blanket. He was not a cat who watched life from a distance. He participated fully in everything.

He had a sense of adventure that delighted everyone around him. He would beg for what we came to call “field trips,” outdoor excursions he lobbied for with great enthusiasm. He had a little green backpack carrier, and we would leave it out for him. When he was ready to go outside, he would simply hop in and wait. He scheduled his own adventures. He climbed a ladder in my office once, stepping up rung by rung with total confidence, and looked down from the top with the expression of someone who had always known he could do it. He loved watching birds from the window, running full speed across the house to get the best view. He had a favorite purple chair. He had a burlap sack he liked to crawl under while we made him a little tent. He had a whole life, rich and specific and entirely his own.

Not long after bringing Miso home, we noticed something. His breathing had a wet, raspy quality that didn’t seem right. We brought him back to the vet, where an x-ray revealed an enlarged or abnormal shape to his heart. Concerned, we sought a second opinion. That vet detected a heart murmur and, wanting a clearer picture, performed a cardiac sonogram. What they found was sobering: thickening of the walls of the heart and a valve that was not closing properly. They referred Miso to a cardiologist at the University of Illinois in Urbana, where they confirmed the diagnosis, HOCM, hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy, a serious but manageable heart condition seen in cats.

He was put on Atenolol to slow his heart rate and reduce the strain on his heart. The difference was noticeable. Before the medication, Miso would play and then have to stop and lie down, his little heart working too hard to keep up with his spirit. After Atenolol he could run and play without exhausting himself. He still sprinted to the windows. He still climbed things he had no business climbing. He still lived at full speed.

In November 2025, two years after his diagnosis, we returned to the cardiologist for a follow up. The news was mixed. While Miso had remained stable and his breathing had improved, the muscle thickening had not reversed. The cardiologist increased his Atenolol dosage with the hope of improvement over time. It wasn’t the worst news, but it wasn’t the all clear we had hoped for either. We left with a follow up appointment scheduled for May of 2026, committed as always to doing everything possible for our little man.

He never made it to that appointment.

On April 12, 2026, Miso spent the day doing what he loved. Playing. Running. Being exactly himself.

On the morning of April 13, 2026, he didn’t wake up.

I found him at 7am, peacefully curled in his sleeping position on his favorite purple chair. He had slipped away quietly in the night, the way those with HOCM sometimes do, suddenly and without suffering. He was two and a half years old.

I held him and just wailed.

Miso left behind Lydia and me, who loved him more than words can hold, and his feline companion Mochi, with whom he shared a home, a wrestling box, and the occasional nap. He left behind a paw print pressed in clay, a small clip of cashmere fur, and hundreds of photographs I took of him. I am a professional photographer, and I saw in Miso what everyone who met him saw: something genuinely rare.

He left behind open blinds in my home office, positioned just right for a cat who loved to watch the world go by.

Miso’s story is one of love and attentiveness and the kind of care that gives a rescue kitten with a serious heart condition two and a half full, joyful, adventure-filled years. We did everything right. We listened when something seemed off. We pursued answers. We found specialists. We gave him medication and field trips and blankets and purple chairs and called him our little man.

If Miso’s story helps even one cat owner listen a little more closely, act a little more quickly, or love a little more openly, then his short and beautiful life continues to ripple outward in the best possible way.

He was one of a kind. Everyone who met him knew it right away.