Sula, a San Juan Bautista cat heroine, is introduced in the new book called Surviving Cancer, Healing People: One Cat’s Story, written in Sula’s voice, but by Betty Lou Leaver.
The white and grey large feline, with clipped ears, has lived in Mission San Juan Bautista for eight years.
“No one knows how Sula got to the Mission. We didn’t want to start feeding her, so it wouldn’t stay but she kept coming back, so we kept her,” stated Ana Silva, the Mission Gift Shop manager. She referred to Sula as: “A snuggling-up cat, mellow, sweet, people-lover and likes to be petted.”
Silva explained that most people feel that way when they see the cat wander through the Mission garden, or sit in the gift shop, greeting customers.
Or when the mood hits her, Sula can sometimes be found in the gift shop office curled up on a soft bed, as any good cat knows how to do.
In the words of Sula herself, as told to Leaver in the book: “I have a mission, and a Mission. Just what more could any cat want?”
“I tried the City Hall, but to be honest, bureaucracy and plumbing permits bored me, and I did not feel like that was where I was supposed to be,” Sula stated.
Then she went downtown, which also didn’t seem to fit her.
“So, one day when I felt like I was being called (maybe it was the Mission bells that put that in my head), I trotted up the hill to the Old Mission San Juan Bautista, no easy feat for my roly-poly frame.”
When she saw the Mission, she just knew that her mission was complete, so goes the story.
Sula knows about cancer, as she has endured two operations to have cancer removed from her ear tips.
Donors who love the cat, and the ambience she creates, both in the Mission and the sanctuary, gladly funded the second operation.
Even though the second surgery left her healed but in need of a bit more rest, she continues her duties of giving special attention to those who are facing a need for extra comfort in their lives. It has been said that Sula, with a divine, animal instinct, knows just who needs more loving compassion.
Surviving Cancer, Healing People: One Cat’s Story, the book, has been published by MSI Press, LLC in Hollister, and is available at the Mission Gift Shop. The proceeds will be used for the restoration and also the preservation of the Mission.
The book was selected as a Reviewer’s Choice for the month of September by MidWest Book Review, which stated: “Surviving Cancer, Healing People: One Cat’s Story is one of those books that will linger in the mind and memory of the reader long after it is finished and set back upon the shelf! Heartwarming and thoughtful, “Surviving Cancer, Healing People” is a joy to browse and highly recommended.”
The US Review of Books also recommended Sula’s book.
For more information about Sula, visit her Facebook page.
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