This is a special one for me.
Over 5 months ago, I took in a new mama cat and 8 kittens, around 6 weeks old. It was clear from almost the beginning that mama wasn’t well. I mean, 8 kittens is a lot of kittens, so it was no huge surprise that mama was skinny, nor that she’d decided to be done feeding them. She wasn’t mean to the babies. She was just DONE, you know? Boobies offline. No mas milk. Shop closed. When the babies sought the breast, mama moved herself elsewhere STAT. As a mama of many myself, I applauded her boundaries. Her babies were fine. They were able to feed themselves and to comfort each other with warmth. She was making choices for her own health now.
What I didn’t know at the time was that mama was in a fight for her life. She slowly kept losing weight and fur, and it took me a while to catch on.
When new fosters come into my home, I like to give them time to adjust. They are, quite reasonably, scared. They don’t know yet that they’re safe. So when this terrified mama needed some space, I gave it to her. I didn’t know yet that being shy and reticent wasn’t her personality or a learning curve; she was just very sick.
Once we figured it out, it was an easy fix. In addition to 8 kittens, turns out a parasite was sucking on her, too. A three-day course of meds changed this girl’s whole world. Her fur grew back silky and soft. She put on some pounds. She rested. And it turns out, she’s an absolute love. Sweet. Gentle. Eager for quiet attention. A treasure, this one.
Still, I worried about finding her a home. It’s hard enough to find homes for kittens, and while I’m genuinely, truly, deeply grateful for every family that adopts the cute babies, there is a special place in my heart for the humans who adopt the adult animals. The mama kitties who’ve seen things. The medical cases. The ones who take extra time to warm up. The adults already grown who have as much to give as the kittens but who’ve learned the world can be hard and harsh, and so they keep their personalities on lockdown until you earn it. Who wait to be wooed rather than tackle the wooing themselves. It takes a human who believes in patience and earned trust to bring a grownup creature home and give them a soft place to land.
Friends, meet my very own aunt, Ann, who adopted this mama kitty yesterday. Ann, who’s known loss. Ann, who knows how to earn trust. Ann, who’s going to have the greatest gift with this precious lady. And meet Minerva, the mama headed home to her reward, a pampered life of leisure and plenty.
