Companions

“They’d lived with us in different homes; enclosed in a tent; they’d been in a barn; they’d been in an indoor cattery, a garden cattery, and indoors with a front porch outlet protected by chain link fence panels to keep us all from being eaten by a passing mountain lion.

For several months, they were even living in and out of their carrier boxes in shifts while the four cats, two dogs, a fish, a gecko, two plants, and two overworked, stressed out humans rented a double-queen hotel room.

They’d adapted, molded, bent, and even folded into carriers, under blankets, up bookshelves and shoulders, onto our laps, and lying next to our bodies and/or partialy onto our faces.

They drove me crazy because like four more children, they were often going in opposite directions getting into things, and as a single mom, I was always near-breaking overstimed from managing everything.

It’s just heartwrenching that after all of the struggles and finally getting us to a place that has felt like home again, three so far have had to suddenly leave us.

At least they had the best lives we could give them and Youngling got to keep growing up with them.

And for as task-keeping tough as I was with everybody, they all knew they could count on me, and that underneath my frazzled worry, they were deeply loved and wanted.”