Your Courageous Life

I wrote a few entries ago about how attached I had grown to Poppy, and how sad I was that we would not be able to adopt her. We moved out of the house-sit and began the process of moving into our new place, and I noticed that when I would come home and Poppy wasn’t there to greet me, I’d feel this soreness in my heart, missing her. 

I got up one morning and headed to Peet’s for a latte and for some reason, even though the line wasn’t long and even though I never do this, I picked up the local Alameda Journal while waiting for the barista to finish my drink. I opened the paper, and right there was a picture of a large white cat, so similar to Poppy at a first glance that I blinked. But it was not Poppy, it was another cat, one they had named Merlin. He was the local pet shelter’s “Pet of the Week.”

I immediately got one of those weird “this feels really synchronous” sensations. So later that day, I decided I’d stop by the shelter to check this cat out.

Omigosh. He was just a total sweetheart. Loving attention, completely chill. I asked the volunteers about a bazillion questions. Meanwhile, this little guy (er, “little” is relative here, he’s proably 16-17 pounds) plopped himself on the concrete floor of the shelter, draping himself elegantly on one side, and patiently waited to be petted again. He has clear blue eyes and is pure white without even a single spot of color. The volunteers told me that of all the cats, he was the most chill–very easy to hang out with, very calm. 

I brought Andy back to the shelter later that day to meet him. Still, we didn’t take him home. I just kept feeling that there was something really synchronous about it–opening the paper while I was just grabbing a quick coffee, seeing this cat. We sat on the couch discussing name possibilities. 

“How about White Boy?” I suggested. “Can you imagine? Standing on the stoop of the house. ‘Come here, White Boy! Come on! Come on, White Boy!’ ”

But then the name hit me: Buddha. This cat’s a bit fat lug, and he’s just so, so calm. The next day we went and got him from the shelter.

On the car ride from the shelter to the house, Buddha was very calm. He let me pet him through his kennel door and purred the whole way. At the house, he did the ritual of sniffing everything, and once that was finished, he plopped himself in the middle of the floor as if to say, “Okay, things look good here. I’ll stay.”

I do still miss Poppy. Buddha isn’t a ‘replacement,’ because as anyone who has fallen in love with an animal knows, they have their own personalities and Poppy can’t be ‘replaced’. But I do feel like this guy is it, the balm for my sore little heart–this sweetie who pretty much just follows you from room to room, plops down wherever you are, meows occasionally to be petted (his meow is more of a small lion warbling…we think he’s part Maine Coon, despite the fact that he’s not colored like one, because he’s just seriously part lion or something). 

It’s starting to feel like all of the pieces are coming together, like we are finally home.

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 9th, 2009 at 6:00 am |