Of all the applcations, these are my least favorite. The answers aren't always easy, some needing further explanations, others just simply not what you want to hear. But I'm nothing if not honest, so here goes.
When I was all of 18 I wandered into a pet store while visiting my parents and there was a box of kittens. Now I had no buisness adopting a cat, having never owned one ever, let alone adopting two. But, it was the 90's, and $50 later, there I was heading back to my one bedroom apartment with absolutely no clue what I had just done. Kittens are A LOT. My boyfriend was less than amused. Six months later when it was all over, I moved them back to my parents house, with all of my belongings, who were also less than amused. When I moved across the country a few short months later, their two carriers accompanied my three suit cases as I started completely over 1200 miles from home.
I got married a year later. One day my husband came home with a dog. She had been dumped in the middle of I95, and was scared out of her mind. We had no plans or a dog, and an apartment is no place for a husky. While she loved the cats, she terrorized them. She ate everything in our place and was unruley to walk. We both had to work two jobs to keep a roof over our heads, let alone theirs, so we made the painful desision to rehome them all. Our husky went to a literal farm. She spent her days hearding horses with two cattle dogs and never had another discipline problem again. She needed much more than we could give her, and clearly we made the right choice. The cats went to a well funded shelter, devastated, I cried the whole time. I secretly went back a week later to get them back but they had already found a home. I voulenteered there weekly for over a year, trying to give back for the home they gave them. It's one of my biggest regrets. I still have their hand engraved name tags and collars. It's been 30 years.
Many years later, divorced, with two children in tow, I had closed on my first home, and while our lives were full, there was something missing. There was a nagging I couldn't ignore, and it was clear my youngest son needed an emotional support animal. We went to the local MSPCA and met three cats that met our requirements. Two of them were beautiful, well mannered, snugggly cats. And then there was HIM. Six years old, he had been retuned for behavior issues twice. Missing half his fur from stress, ears gooey with antibiotics, he was hissing and hiding from us the whole time. Undeterred, my youngest son insisted he was the one for us.
And that he was. He lived until 17. His hair grew back. He was the untimate snuggler. The boys put him in laundry baskets and pillowcases, and he joined them on all indoor adventures, saving the world with his ninja cat skills. He was the legendary Mr. Chewey and the hole he left in our souls is still as big as the day he left.
Two years later I was overwhelmed with the need for a dog. My current husband had never had a dog, didn't want a dog, and thought I had lost my mind. The boys were now a junior and senior in High School, and we were so close to freedom. Yet, I was obsessed. I looked at so many doggos even as far away as Gorigia, but nothing was working out. I had resigned myself to stepping back when a dog popped up in my facebook feed for the third time. She was two hours away, was just through her treatment for hearworm, and had been returned to the shelter for aggression, so she had to be the only dog in the home. My husband and I decided to take the drive out and it changed us forever. While I was getting the specifics on her needs, my husband bonded instantly. He can still remember the look in her eyes when he said he'd be back to get her next week.
The bond was instantaneous. She needed him as much as he needed her. For the next six years she was as much a child in our home as the two legged ones were, if not more. She went to day care to socialize and work through her dog anxiety. We learned how to train her, she could walk without pullig and be off leash without issue. She is in my yongest's senor pictures. Her pawprint is tattooed on mine and my son's skin.
Three years later, I had the "calling" as we've come to be known, and needed to get another cat. Agian, nothing was quite working out, many shelters not even entertaining it becasue of our girl's German Shepard/Husky mix. Undeterred we presisted, all of us, including the dog, visiting Petsmart one day and having our cat choose us. She was gooey from stress, and blind in one eye but it didn't matter, becasue as youngest said, "all of us are a little broken". She was ours now. And while she and the dog took heir time, they eventually bonded. As the dog aged, I often found the cat sniffing the dog's fur and grooming her face as she slept.
When the dog was disnosed with Cushings disease I changed jobs to afford her treatments. My husband sold off collections he'd had for 20 years to make sure she had every test and medication necessary. We stopped traveling together in 2021 so that she wouldn't have to be away from my husband. Our world revolved around her, particuarly in the last year. The last few months of 2024 my husband did hospice care for her, getting up at all hours of the night, carrying her down the stairs when necessary, making her food from scratch, and doing daily laser therapy for her stiffening joints.
When you only have three days left, you spend it all with her. You eat all her favorite foods and get ice cream in the middle of January. You go to all the dog parks, walk downtown and pick out gourmet treats, and eat salmon for dinner. You make footprints in the first snow of the season, and sleep next to her on the floor. You hit her with all the pain meds, and when the time finally comes, you grieve the unimagineable loss of your best friend.
It's been almost five months and some days the pain is still as palpable as the first few days. I'm not sure the timing will ever be right, but I know when the calling happens I want to be ready. My youngest isn't ready for another fur baby. My oldest son wants another cat. My husband wants to wait the 13 months until he's retired. I want to wait until we are fully financially recovered, and make sure the fur baby we still have is fully cared for.
But the calling is coming.
And so is our our newest family member.
It will not be on a whim, or an especially perfect photo on petfinder.
It will be a perfectly timed hapenstance,
orchestrated by those we've let go,
who know the exact size of the cracks in our hearts that need to be filled.
