Something Bigger Than Me

Anyone who is friends with me on Facebook knows what an incredibly crappy year I've had.  Totally first world problems, but nonetheless, I've been a stressball all year.  And when Gracie, my cat died, I broke a little.  There are pieces of my heart scattered throughout the universe, never to be found again.

Just like I've done when my other beloved cats died, I went to work.  Physical labor helps me to not forget exactly, but to focus my grief on something I can control.  When Maalea died, I dug a pond in 2 days in the heavy clay Texas soil.  With Sydney, it was a garden in Minnesota on land that used to be a gravel pit.  And so with Grace I needed to find an outlet too.  Enter the animal shelter, with the 50 pound bags of litter, the knee crushing concrete floor, and the insistent meows of 80 cats and kittens wanting to be fed.

I've always known that after my last Texas cat died I'd start over again, with 2 kittens.  And unlike all of my previous cats, who chose me by showing up at my doorstep, I thought that this time I'd choose them.  After all, getting a kitten is a potential 20 year committment, and I wanted to make sure that I chose a kitten that was beautiful, sweet, and healthy.

And God laughed.  I can keep telling myself that I chose them, but the fact of the matter is, Lee, Filly, and Meep chose me.  They crawled into my arms and into my heart at the same time.  Some people say that our pets will reincarnate and come back to us over and over again.  I don't know if that's true, but that broken piece of my heart has a scab on it now, and while it will never completely heal, it's whole enough to love again.  Are they beautiful?  To me they are, although Meep has a cataract in one eye, Filly has more toes than the average cat, and Lee is just another black cat.  Are they sweet?  YES!  Are they healthy?  Not yet.  Living in a shelter is hard on a kitten, and all of them have had their issues, from upper respiratory infections to parasites.  Who knows what issues they'll have in the future; it's a crapshoot at best.

Now, I'm not so fixated on whether my house in Texas will ever sell (it's under contract for the 4th time), or what paint colors I'll use in my new house.  Now I'm impatiently waiting for the day I can take my babies to their forever home.  And what I can do to help the overcrowded shelter continue to help homeless cats and dogs.  It's bigger than me.