Growing up, my dad wasn’t the fondest of us having pets. He thought it was going to make the house messy, that it’d be expensive and there wasn’t any good reason to have one.
One day, when I and my sister were playing outside in our childhood home, we heard a small meow coming from somewhere. As we followed where the sound was coming from, we came across a little kitten. The mother was probably the stray cat that we were used to seeing roaming around all the time. Me and my sister took the kitten back inside. We cleaned it, fed it took care of it. We didn’t give our dad a choice whether we were allowed to keep it or not. We were going to do whatever to keep this helpless abandoned (at least we thought it was abandoned) kitten. We ended up raising the kitten and named him Blueeyes. Ironically looking back at old photos, he apparently had green eyes (hey we were children okay). Anyways, Blueeyes was both an outdoor and indoor cat. We let him go outside whenever he wanted and would come back home. However one day we let him out and he never returned. Me and my sister were devastated. Never got closure to what happened.
Since then, we never got another pet. Until the end of 2021.
It was around September and a person dropped off a litter of kittens in front of my cousin’s workplace. They ended up taking them home and asked our family if anybody wanted one. As soon as my sister heard this, she was on a mission to convince my dad once more that we can have a pet. Ever since the Blueeyes era, my sister has been obsessed with animals. She was eventually going to become a veterinarian because of how much she loved animals but ended up studying to be an elementary school teacher.
There was one kitten, Akeem, that my sister bonded with in particular. On my sister’s birthday, end of that September, my sister had one request from my father. For us to adopt Akeem. After much begging for my sister and convincing from my cousin my dad let us have the kitten. Since then we have adopted another one, we named Simba, not too shortly after.
Let me tell you, saying that these cats have changed our lives is an utter understatement. That has brought so much tenderness and joy into our family that wasn’t as outwardly there.
Animals have the ability to put an immediate smile on your face (for most people). I have some people in my family that when they come over they are terrified of Akeem and Simba. But it’s so interesting to witness that because I notice how the cats act differently around other people that are not their owners.
You build a special bond with them. When they come inside the first thing they do is come and rub themselves on you to show their affection. They meow for you to pet them and the purring feels so calming. As you pet them they look straight into your eyes and you can feel the love they have for you. It’s something special.
So to all the pet owners out there, love and take good care of your pets. And don’t take them for granted.