It had been over a year since my old dog, a yellow lab mutt I called Canary, passed away. I had her in my life for years, and when the cancer took her, it took me too. A big dog-shaped piece of me full of love, and memories, and joy. When I was stuck in ruts of depression and didnât want to take care of myself, I would still, because if I didnât, then nobody would be there to take care of Canary, and Canary deserved the world.
After she was gone I had nothing, no reason to get up and take care of myself, because what was the point? Me? Certainly not. If I didnât have something to look after, I had nothing. Thatâs how I lived, if you can call surviving off uncooked ramen noodles and pre-packaged protein shakes living.
Nobody was happy about this, least of all my friends, who were forced to watch me waste away. They kept telling me to get another dog, to move forward, but how could I when Canary was THE dog? The BEST girl, the PERFECT baby girl. There would never be another dog like her, and a stubborn part of me didnât want there to be.
I insisted that it was pointless to try looking. That it was pointless to find something, someone, new, to fill my life with meaning. Canary was the only thing that mattered, and once she was gone, nothing did, and it cost me everything.
The depression worsened, I lost my job, and only barely managed to get myself on unemployment to be able to afford my apartment. It allowed me to stagnate, after all, you donât HAVE to actually go out and apply for jobs, you donât HAVE to hit the pavement looking for work, so long as you type into the hardly working government website that you did, you can still get paid. Unemployment doesnât last, however.
I was nearing the end of my allotment, and my rope. If something didnât change soon I would slip right off and through the cracks, and for the most part, I didnât care. I was willing to accept that. I was willing to accept that I was a nothing person with no job, and eventually no home.
My friend Maxie is a saint. They always pick up other peopleâs slack, they always did âthe right thing.â Not for some kind of praise or recognition, always, they said, because it was just what a person should do. Volunteering their time as a tutor, donating extra clothes and food, and apparently, picking up stray kittens.
Two of them, even. Two little kittens that had been left in a cardboard box on the street corner with the word, âFree,â crudely written on each side in stale sharpie. Maxie was going home from work when they saw them. Two boys, one white with gray spots, and one orange, both far too young to be away from their mother, both abandoned by whoever decided leaving kittens in a box on the sidewalk was still a viable way to handle the problem of having kittens you didnât want.
Maxie saw them there, and their heartstrings were played like a fiddle from a single glance alone. Maxie, however, lived in a no-pet studio apartment where the landlord seemed to think even the idea of owning an animal was an affront to their precious property. They couldnât keep them, couldnât take care of them. So what did Maxie do? Come to MY apartment holding up a box with two kittens inside.
âJuni! Hey! Iâm so glad youâre home!â They didnât wait for me to invite them in, once the door was open they pushed their way inside. âHow have you been?â
I looked to my apartment as they continued their breech, brow raised from the incredulity of the question. Like they couldnât see all the trash I left lying around, the empty take-out containers, and ripped snack packaging, but that didnât stop them. They didnât even stop for me to actually answer the question before they kept going.
âSo, listen, I know youâve been having a rough time since Canary, and I happened to see these little guys left on the sidewalk, so-â
They stopped walking, finally turning around to face me, box still in hand, holding it out at this point for me to see inside. I peered in, and the sight of the small cats had me take pause. Maxie took this as an opportunity to keep going.
âSo, you know my apartment doesnât allow pets! And I know, I know youâre not looking for new ones! But I was really, reaaaaally hoping, that maybe you could watch them? Just! For a few days! Iâll find a place they can go, I promise! But I couldnât leave them there, you know? Alone, and all thatâŠâ
I watched as Maxie settled on the couch, putting the box on the ground and pulling the kittens out to rest on their lap. They were so small they could both fit, they were probably not even six months old. Way too young to be separated from their mother, but just old enough to fumble around each other on Maxieâs lap once put down.
âMaxie-I-... I canât be taking care of kittens. My apartment is a wreck, I donât have a job or-...â I didnât have anything⊠âBring them to Stella, she would love to take care of them.â
âWell! Yeah! But Stella HAS three cats, and you know how they are about new things. Theyâd tear these babies apart!â The orange âbaby,â was scooped up and held to face me while Maxie manipulated his paws and made him âspeak.â
âPlease Juniper! Weâre good boys! Please let us stay for a few days! Weâll be so so so so good!â
âMaxie, look at this place, this isnât-No kitten should have to live in this-I donât want-â
âIâll help you clean it! Right now! Iâll even do all the cleaning myself! Please, Juniper? They were abandoned, I just, really want to give them a chance.â
As Maxie puppeted the kitten, making it âwave,â at me, I found myself locking eyes with him. He was so young his eyes were still blue. Blue and wide and watery, and as he stared at me he opened his mouth and meowed, and that was it. My own dumb bleeding heart, the same thing that had me adopting Canary all those years ago, was hooked.
âFucking-god damnit, fine, you clean my apartment and Iâll hold onto them for the next few days until you can get an actual home for them. Youâre also buying all the stuff, got it?â
As I gave in I moved to sit beside Maxie on the couch, taking the orange boy into my own hands. He was so small, so fragile, I could feel his little heart beating away in his chest, and he needed someone⊠Him and his brother both. They needed someone. They needed me.
With their hands free, Maxie clapped happily before scooping up the second cat and setting him on my lap. âThank you! Thank you! Thank you! Youâre the best Juni! I promise! Itâs just gonna be a few days!â
I grumbled out my resignation as Maxie hopped to and began to rapid fire clean my apartment.
Left on the couch, two cats at hand, I thought back to when I got Canary. I found her when she was already a year old, so I never saw her when she was a puppy⊠Nowhere near as young as these two wereâŠ
The white and gray one wasted no time in squishing himself in the crook of my lap, against my stomach, for the warmth. The orange one, still in my hands, began to squirm, and let out another squeaky meow. I set him beside his brother and he began to crawl on top of him, clearly having other ideas for how to spend their time that wasnât napping.
I watched as he forced his brother into a tussle, the clumsy kind that kittens have when theyâre not fully used to how their bodies move. The kind that ends in the two of them tangled up together, neither wanting, or even knowing how, to pull apart. Soon enough there was a ball of cat on my lap, and I could feel it again. The desire to take care of something that needed it. The knowing that they were helpless without a human hand to help them.
All it took was the span of ten kitten filled seconds, and I was already under their weird kitty thumbs. God. Damnit.
As they cleaned the place up, Maxie began to babble on their plans for finding them homes. Going on about the few places they were going to check, the store they knew had the best deal on kitten food and litter boxes. I wasnât listening. I was watching the cats as the two of them finished their wrestle, entirely on my lap, where they promptly gave up on moving once the orange oneâs energy had run dry.
At that point, a part of me already knew I was going to keep them. That I just became a cat owner. That I had been duped into actually having to get my life together again because I had things that relied on me. That my home wasnât just mine anymore, and that it mattered if I had a job and ate regularly and took care of myself, because if I didnât, I couldnât take care of them. That if I kept neglecting myself, I was now also, neglecting them.
To this day I think Maxie knew that was going to happen, and I canât even be mad about it. I had new reasons to live, to keep going, to thrive. Because if I thrived, then so did they, and how could I deny them that? I couldnât, not for one second, these boys deserved the world, and I was going to be the one to give it to them.
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