A Great Day

A few evenings ago, I laid down in bed and allowed a memory to wash over me. This memory has been coming up often lately, and I’m not really sure why. I thought it might be best to share it and preserve it to satisfy my mind.

Last spring, our dog passed away. I didn’t expect it to bother me nearly as much as it did. To say I was crushed, would be an understatement. My knee jerk reaction was no more pets, ever, but after a month, the house felt lonely, and I think both my wife and I needed some animal therapy.

We spent a few days discussing options that ranged from ghost shrimp to another dog. Cats were not real consideration, because my wife had had some allergy issues, but I knew of this new Purina food that was supposed to help with allergies, so we entertained the idea. Further research led us to discover some breeds of cats seemed better for allergies than others, so we limited our search to those breeds when browsing online.

One Saturday morning, I decided to make a day out of looking at animals. We just wanted to be around some and see how things went. I took my wife to the only pet store I knew of that allowed you to interact with puppies, and we spent an hour petting, playing, and cuddling with different puppies. I think it was a bittersweet situation, because in some ways it is nice to be around a dog, but in others we realized how much we didn’t want to deal with that sort of energy and how a new puppy would not replace our beloved dog.

Cats are always more difficult to interact with, so we went to our local PetSmart to look at the cats they had for adoption, as well as to price out what it would cost to equip our apartment for a cat. It was a bit of fantasy, but we took our time and just bummed around.

Of course, the biggest concern was how my wife would react around a cat. Would she have major allergy issues? We needed to know, but we wanted to interact with a Siamese cat, because that was the most affordable breed that was supposedly better for allergies.

As we walked out of PetSmart, I told my wife I’d seen one Siamese on the SCPA’s website. It was up for adoption yesterday but was now listed as available. The SPCA was about thirty minutes away, and closed in an hour, so if she wanted to go we could. This is the type of situation where I’d usually just decide to go home, especially after a long, emotional day, but we decided that it would be worth the drive if she could just pet the cat and see how things went.

We arrived at the SPCA and asked about the cat, and they confirmed she was available and if we wanted to explore the idea of adopting her, we needed to fill out an appointment card on the website for the following day to essentially put a hold on her. I filled out the application, and my wife asked them if we could see her. The staff member checked with someone and then some else escorted us to a small room where the available cats were up for adoption.

The dozen or so cats were all sitting in the cages, some comfortable, some a little skittish, except for one. There was one in the bottom crate pacing and rubbing her head against the cage. Of course, it was the cat we came to see.

My wife melted. She fell in love and pet the kitten through the cage and after a few minutes, we were able to actually interact with her outside of the cat in a safe area. The cat was active, kind, and curious. We spent the next thirty minutes with her, and we were both smitten. We left the SCPA knowing we were going to adopt that cat the next morning, and so we went back to PetSmart to buy supplies, and then to Ollies to pick up more stuff. We got home and went to work setting up the house and preparing for our kitty’s arrival.

Of course we adopted her, and it’s been one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. She is a beautiful, graceful, and kind cat. She sticks to me like Velcro and there is nothing better than me waking up in the middle of the night to find her cuddling under the covers next to me. Sure, like all cats, she can be a pest. She gets a little annoying when its close to dinner time, and she did break the TV in my bedroom this week, but I wasn’t even mad about it. The amount of joy and love she brought to home is so much more important than a TV.

So, this memory that keeps haunting me is of that moment when we walked into that little room at the SPCA. Seeing this cat, the only active one, rubbing against the cage, purring, and just begging to be taken home. She was living in a feral colony, and had a very rough start to life, but that didn’t kill her spirit and now she lives the good life, with every need catered to and more toys, treats, and wet food than she could dream of.