Last Wednesday night, shortly after 10PM, I was forced to take a detour on my way home from work due to the endless amount of construction that swarms my pocket of PA this time of year. So, I turned off of my usual route and embarked upon the back way home. I made a turn onto a dark street, and soon spotted a fuzzy lump in the middle of the road.
At first, I assumed it was roadkill. It’s unfortunate, but it happens – bunnies, squirrels, gophers, other woodland creatures attempt to make their way across the street when they meet their untimely demise beneath a tire. But, as I was maneuvering to pass over the lump without striking it, a furry little head popped up and I caught the gleam of golden eyes in my headlights.
It was a kitten, and it was alive.
Horrified, I had to turn off onto a different road and circle around in order to get back to the spot. I frantically called my mom (don’t talk on the phone and drive, folks…I’m a bad human, but I was at a stoplight and put her on speaker) and told her what I’d seen and that I was going to check it out further. Luckily, in the five minutes it took me to get back onto that stretch of road, no one else had hit the poor creature – though no one else had stopped, either. I’d hoped it would crawl away or get off the road in that time, but it was still there, curled up in the middle of the lane.
I put my blinkers on, carefully stepped out of my car, and approached the kitten. It made no sound, and it’s eyes were closed, but it was half-upright and didn’t appear to have any grave, visible wounds. So, careful as I could manage, I scooped the kitten up and carried it back to my car, and it sat on my lap the entire ride home. Halfway home, it started purring – which made me hopeful that it wasn’t grievously injured.
When I got home, my mom came out and wrapped Kitty in a towel – after determining the gender as female – and I ventured back out to grab kitten chow and a disposable litter box from the grocery store. We called the emergency vet, who informed us that they would just put Kitty down if we brought her in (especially if she was injured, but mainly because of her stray status) though the only apparent injury was an abrasion on her lip. So we resolved to keep her in a crate overnight (our adult cat was less than pleased by this) in my room and revisit the issue in the morning.
Morning came, and though Kitty was still groggy, she chowed down on kitten food and perked up quite a lot. I let her explore a bit around my room, sniffing and inspecting everything, and she eventually snuggled up on my lap to take a nap. She was so thin – when I ran my hand along her spine, I could feel each individual vertebrae, and her hip bones were protruding. After some phone calls and research, we resolved to go to the SPCA just to ask for some advice on what step to take next.
The dire nature of Kitty’s situation was revealed when we arrived, and the SPCA workers informed us that, because Kitty was so frail and possibly sick, they would likely euthanize her as well. Besides, their shelter was full because it’s kitten season, and they had no room for her. Because we couldn’t surrender Kitty without giving her a fighting chance, we kept her with us. A call to our regular vet to schedule an appointment for the next day and a stop at a local pet store yielded better results, as the manager gave us some helpful advice, a sample of wet food for free, and an abundance of well wishes.
The next day’s visit to our vet proved that Kitty was healthy, but thin – which made me doubly glad we hadn’t surrendered her anywhere that euthanizing was an option. They speculated that she had possibly been tossed from a car, due to the brush burn on her lip – which made my blood boil. The vet didn’t even charge us, because he and his wife asserted that we were doing the right thing by trying to save the poor kitten’s life. So my mom gave her a bath and I continued to let her explore my room, and her spirits seemed high. She even began to meow, though she’d been mostly silent since I’d found her, and her purring was nonstop.
After a handful of social media posts reaching out to family and friends proved fruitless, and local no-kill shelters informed us that they were already full, I began to really believe we wouldn’t find anyone to adopt Kitty, and, by default, she’d stay with us. I’ve wanted a cat to call my own for ages, and it seemed like the universe was telling me that it was time – a kitten had practically fallen into my lap. I was the one to spot the glint of her eyes in the headlights of my car, the one to scoop her up out of the road before a car could hit her, the one to buy her kitty chow and a litter box, the one to let her crawl around my room and explore and let her curl up and fall asleep on my chest, so she wouldn’t feel alone.
My friends and coworkers were convinced it was good karma in action, and I was meant to be the one to find Kitty. Though I had attempted not to grow attached to her, it was an impossible effort. She was just so adorable, and I even picked out a name for her in my head – Ripley, after one of my favorite badass female film heroes. Even my dad started growing attached to her.
Then, on Saturday, my mom called me at work, and informed me that she had pinned down a new home for Kitty – with a woman who works at a local vet’s office, and who is used to handling young kittens. And the wind was promptly sucked out of my sails. I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted her to be my cat, and I felt like she already was, even though she’d only been with me for a couple of days. She would even rub her face against mine, purring like a motorboat, and give me little kitty kisses before curling up to take a nap on my lap or chest.
And though I so, so badly wanted to tell my mom to call it off – to tell her that I was going to keep and care for Kitty on my own – I relented. Though I did make her drive Kitty to my job, so I could give her a cuddle and a kiss goodbye, and ensure that her last memory of me wouldn’t be when I’d put her back into her crate that morning.
I just couldn’t do it. I still live at home, and I’m trying to move out – potentially to a different state. I’m trying to get my second book published, and pay off student loans and my car. Not to mention that it would be very difficult to get a consistent training schedule in place for Kitty with my work schedule, and getting our adult cat, Reese, used to being around a rambunctious kitten would be a gargantuan challenge, considering Reese hates other cats and basically spent the entirety of the three days Kitty was with us hiding under my parents bed and hissing at us. My parents were okay with my keeping the kitten so long as I took full responsibility for her, and I would have done so – but since I haven’t been able to move out yet, I’d still be inflicting a curious new life (and her little claws) on their home, and their new furniture. The timing was bad – and though I know I could have eventually managed, and Kitty wouldn’t be a kitten forever, I just couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved, including Kitty.
It’s been almost a week now, and initially, I was pretty bummed out – like, “have a nice cry in the shower” kind of bummed. But I know that I did the right thing, in the end. Everything that had happened in those three whirlwind days seemed to indicate that my finding Kitty was meant to be, and I do think that’s true – but in a different way. I think I was only meant to be the in-between, Kitty’s pit stop on the road to her forever home. And I am so thankful that I was able to help her, even a small amount. And in a way, Kitty helped me realize that in order to obtain the life I want, there are steps I need to take, and her sudden appearance in my life has inspired me to start taking action instead of letting fear and doubt rule me.
Too many people adopt pets without knowing the work involved – they see a cute kitten’s face or hear a puppy’s whine and think “Aw, I want one!” instead of considering that it’s an actual life you are committing to care for. That’s how shelters fill to the brim with poor creatures who don’t deserve to be mistreated, and how pets who deserve nothing but love are left to the wilderness to fend for themselves because irresponsible owners didn’t realize the level of care involved, and that’s cruelty to the highest degree. What happened to Kitty before our paths crossed is an unknown – perhaps she was dropped from a car, abandoned by her mother, or climbed up into a car and fell down mid-drive. Whatever it was, there’s a good chance it was cruel. But in the time she was with my family and me, and thanks to all of the outside help we received – advice from friends, kindness from pet store managers, and generosity from our vet – I realized that despite acts of cruelty and hate, kindness and love can still prevail.
And someday, when the time is right, I’ll have a cat to call my own.
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Frostwritten 