Three Healers

The date was September 11 and what better way to reverence the day than saving lives?

Our precious cat, Tawsha, died a few weeks before and our family decided this was the day to go find a new spirit (or possibly two) to bring into our lives.

Little did we know that we would bring home three.

We knew that we wanted to get kittens. Girl tabbies to be exact.

We looked on petfinder.com and always looked in the pet store's windows to find the perfect kitty. We had lists and filled out multiple applications for animal shelters. They'd done background checks and tried to fit us with the girls they thought would match with us best.

We drove all over within a 30 minute radius of our home to quite a few "no-kill shelters."

My mom decided that a "no-kill shelter" was great, but wasn't there somewhere that was a kill shelter? We wanted to save an animal that was close to being put to sleep.

That is when we ended up at the county shelter.

We then saw (well not me, I had to work, but my family tells me) four pairs of blue, blue eyes looking through the bars, hoping for a family to rescue them.

Three girls and one boy. Tabby. Four weeks old.

Instantly my mother, brother, and sister fell in love.

Because of their young age, we had to wait until the following week to take them home because they couldn't be adopted until they were five weeks old.

While they were there someone showed interest in one of the girls so we picked out our two and during the weekend we decided that if the boy was still there then we would take him too.

In the check-out line, my mother was signing the paperwork and getting everything in line to take the kitties home the following week, when our real opportunity to save an animal took place.

In walked a callous mother and her soon-to-be college freshman daughter. The daughter was holding a blanket that was clearly wrapped around a cat. While the shelter volunteers did whatever they do to get the information when a new animal comes into the shelter, my mom heard bits and pieces of the story...

Apparently, the daughter was going into college in a few weeks and the mother did not want to take care of the 15 year old cat because "she is too old." The girl was crying and it was clear that they had a special connection. If the cat was 15 years old, it makes sense that the girl had her since she 3 or 4 years old.

All Saturday and Sunday, my own mother could not get this horrible woman out of her head. She didn't understand how someone could be so heartless to their own daughter, let alone a cat. Monday morning she decided to call the shelter and find out if this cat was still there. The woman on the phone was the same one who helped her the previous Saturday and both her and my mom shared fury over the story. Apparently everyone at the shelter was furious. They must see tons of stories and situations, so for them to be upset, it must really be serious.

Anyway, the phone call went something like this, "Hi, I was in last Saturday and adopted two kittens and I was wondering what happened with the other cat."

"Hold on, I will go find out."

"Ok, thank you."

(waiting...*insert hold music*)

"I found her, due to her age and the situation, she was going to be put down this afternoon."

"I want her. Our family will take her."

"You have a heart of gold."

We had been so particular in the breed, age, gender, and personality of the cats we researched and here we were adopting a cat that all we knew was that she was a girl and obviously very loved by the college student.

On Tuesday, we rushed home from school and work to get the cat carriers and drive the half hour to the animal shelter before they closed at 5.

This was my first experience seeing the kittens, I couldn't believe how little they were! Just under half a pound each and with adorable kitten cries. We asked a volunteer where "Karin" was and she said she hadn't seen her come in, so this poor cat was still a mystery to us. They eventually found her and we brought all three cats home. Two 5 week old tabby kittens and one 15 year old tuxedo.

They immediately held our hearts and despite the many sicknesses they had gotten from the shelter (3 cats, 6 medicines, and twice a day prescriptions for two weeks was quite stressful).

We almost lost both of the kittens to the sicknesses because they were so little.

Now all three of them are thriving and have brought so much life and love back into our home.

Meet Karin:

Meet Ella:

Meet Macie:

I'm sure you'll hear more about these three bundles of joy but for now here is their story.