A  few days ago, my beautiful, fuzzy, diva cat Bella left this earth.

The hardest part about it was we don’t even know what told her sweet heart to stop its beat.

Bella was a Kentucky feline who ended up in the animal shelter. Her pedigree was impressive, and she was the first one of her kind I had ever seen.

She was a Norwegian Forest Cat. After doing a little research on the breed, she surely fit the bill. She was 4 or 5 months old and was found wandering the streets alone.

If I had ever had to buy her, she would have never had been my baby, Bella. With papers, it could have set me back at least $1,000.

The shelter called and asked if I wanted to see her. I was there in the next hour. She greeted me with spits and hisses and every long black hair standing straight up as if to assure me she wanted nothing to do with me.

I fell hopelessly in love.

While waiting for papers to be filled out, there in the remotest corner of a cage was a three-week tuxedo baby kitten. Barely alive, one eye draining, too many toes on each foot, waiting to die.

“I’ll take both of them,” I said.

I couldn’t bear it.

Reaching into the cage, I wrapped my hand around this poor sick baby and did what Joy Adamson told me to do.

I tucked him into my smock pocket.

Our family increased by two that day, and our days became filled with baby bottles, special formula, sunlight, holding, assuring them constantly they were safe and loved.

So different these two.

“P” became emotionally and physically attached to not only Gene and me but to all humans. But Bella never trusted anyone but me. Not even Gene passed the invisible test.

So many times over her life did I wonder why she ran from loud noises and fled from her cat bed if someone came into visit us.

Who could have abused such a precious being, or was it human abuse?

Maybe she was in an accident, a catfight or even a fight with a predator.

Never in my home was she hit or hurt to exacerbate this massive mistrust. But I always believe I could erase that memory that crippled her.

After Gene passed, “P” and Bella and I moved to assisted living. I explained to all the workers about her past. God bless them.

Except the one allergic to cats, the rest came to our apartment to love on both of my cats.

She learned to trust them — not to the point of letting them hold her, but neither would she leave the room when they tried to pet her.

Bella was too fat. It was no mystery why. She ate her food, “P’s” food, my food and food on the floor.

She could be sound asleep in another room but would run her fat little body into the kitchen if she heard me opening a can.

She began running circles around and around and around me as I transferred her food from the can to her bowl.

Poor little “P,” being the kind soul he always was, would stand behind her and wait. He would not dare eat before she did, not because he feared her, but because that was who he is.

Both “P” and Bella were “fixed.”

But I always wondered if his touching her as he passed her by made her think — you know — an attempt to have intimacy with her.

Maybe that was behind the fact she hissed, spit and smacked him every time she got.

There was no real fights, and never any blood, but I did keep my squirt bottle by me to break up any potential fights. I can’t abide by violence.

When she wanted in my lap, she got up on the arm of my chair, and when she deemed it the perfect time, she became limp, rolled right over into my lap.

It melted my heart.

She would get all comfy, wrap her front paws around my arms, and then lay her head far back, making her eyes to look lovingly up at me upside down.

It was an endearing moment every time to see her flip her yellow eyes open and close, open and close.

These were like love fests.

Now we have made sure Bella will live on in people’s hearts.

My dear friend Lonnie came to visit me, not knowing Bella was dying.

When I told Lonnie what was happening in my apartment, Lonnie went outside to begin what she planned to do in the first place.

It was a love gift to me, one accepted in love by me, she made a beautiful flower garden right outside my bedroom window, and she blessed it with the name, “Bella’s Garden.”

I still think I hear Bella talking to me. When I feed “P,” I sometimes forget and fix two bowls of food.

As the birds all came to our feeder the other day, I could have sworn I heard her at the window making that strange cat noise with her mouth.

But it wasn’t Bella. She is gone. And my heart feels empty without her now.

Thank you, God, for giving me Bella for 11 years. I will never forget her.

The view from the mountain is wondrous.

Jean Brody is a passionate animal lover and mother. She previously lived in Winchester, but now resides in Littleton, Colorado. Her column has appeared in the Sun for more than 25 years.