Fri 11 October 2024

I wrote six months ago about the process of mourning and also my struggle to find another cat to adopt. There were a couple times that I had visited with a cat at a shelter and slowly warmed up to the possibility of adopting them, only to find that the cat had already been adopted when I went back to the shelter after having made the decision to adopt.

Dang, that's hard. Feels a bit like mourning all over again.

So, I didn't visit any shelter for a long time. Then in June, I went to the city shelter and saw a nice male tabby that seemed very attentive and wanting affection. I asked the volunteer to visit with the cat, and at first, everything went great. The cat was a love sponge, and purred like crazy... ...until I stopped petting him, at which point, he started hissing and swatting at me. Umm... demanding!!! 😄

So, that was it for a while, and I didn't think a lot about adopting again. I didn't feel the need to adopt anymore at that point, as this post explains, the healing was pretty much done at that point.

The first couple months of the grieving process were actually quite easy. All I can say is there was a special kind of grace that got me through one of the hardest losses in my life. Going into the third month, it got hard. Feeling empty. Crying often. Coming home, flopping on the bed, and convulsing in body-racking sobs. It was ugly. But I got through it. I did what I could to keep a healthy perspective, to stay thankful for floofson's life.

Back to recent days, I felt like I wanted to adopt again, but I was very unsure.

Three days ago, I woke up from a nap with an odd determination to stop by the city shelter and see what was there. I looked up and down the glass cases and there was this itty bitty tabby floof just looking at me. Neither ignoring, nor boisterously clamoring for affection. She just looked at me.

I asked the attendant to visit with "Mishi" as she was called (this name was picked out by the staff, so there would be no hard feelings by me re-naming her). They said that she had been dropped off because her human parents were no longer able to care for her. Odd. Not much history was given, neither a name nor even age or any kind of medical history.

So, I went into their inner room and sat with "Mishi." She was cuuute. Teensy little gal. But I had so many questions, so many doubts. THIS cat? Why this cat? Will I really ever be able to have the same kind of relationship that I had with Hobbes?

I left without going through the adoption process. I asked to come back the next day with a family member, and they said that while I could that, they don't hold animals unless they are actually being adopted, so she might be adopted by someone else in the interim. I was ok with that, because I really wanted a "second opinion."
So, I told my aunt all about it, and as a long-standing cat lover, she agreed to join me the next day.

We went together that next day, and she had a lot of the same comments I did the day before.
"She's really cute, but... but... but..."

I had a glimmer of certainty when we walked back to the car. "You know, I think I'm going to do it. I'll come back tomorrow. As soon as I got home, it was the same cloud of confusion. Should I? Shouldn't I? Am I ready?

The next day (yesterday), I went to the shelter at the end of the day and asked if I could pick her up then, but she was still recovering from her spaying (sterilizing) procedure, so I had to come back the next day.

I picked her up this afternoon and brought her home in time to celebrate the exact 1-year anniversary of my dear floofson Hobbes' passing with a minute of silence.

I was struggling to come up with a suitably epic name for her but it came to me in the shower yesterday: Mira Delenn Furlan! I named her both after the wonderful Croatian actress, and her utterly EPIC Babylon 5 character, Delenn.

And someday I'll have to figure out how to put a tiny wifi-enabled MCU on her collar, so she can participate in her very own FUR-LAN. ;) (Ok, FUR-WLAN)

In the meantime, she is mercilessly placing the banners of her ownership on my heart, and those of my family members.

Note: This article has a(n informal) Part II!

Category: Life Tagged: Life Loss Non-religious post Non-technical post