Choices

I've often been asked by our incoming patients why it is that I decided to spend my life working at Cat-Dad's side to help other cats and kittens less fortunate than me. The answer to that question goes all the way back to when I was just five weeks old.

I may have mentioned that my brothers and sisters and I were all born in an animal shelter, and were brought to Cat-Dad's home when only four days old. My mother, Nakindi, had been taken there because her people no longer wanted her now that she was about to give birth. Four of the six of us survived that birth situation, and as a new mother, Nakindi was given three additional orphans at the shelter for whom to care. So mom now had seven of us kittens.

Naturally, I have little memory of these events, but both my mother and Cat-Dad have described them to me. Unfortunately, she was very traumatized by being abandoned especially in her time of greatest need. It took months and even years before she would fully trust another human.

But what I do remember growing up is how Cat-Dad would sit on the floor and tell us stories. One time he spoke of his two previous friends, Chloe and Anastasia (whom he affectionately called Annie), two sisters who had lived with him for twenty years. Just that past year in different months, both had been called home. I remember being so moved by the pain in his voice that I climbed up onto him, put my arm around him as far as it would go, and looked straight into his eyes. Here was a human I needed to rescue. There was no question in my mind, even at five weeks old. Right there I made the choice to care for Cat-Dad for the rest of my life.

As time went on, I came to realize he was not alone. There are thousands, perhaps millions of humans out there in desperate need of rescue. It was at that point I made a second choice, to do everything I possibly could to help Cat-Dad in his work of rehabilitating cats and kittens so that we could then rescue these poor unfortunate people. My role became one of working with adult cats who came to our home, comforting and modeling how true feline-human relations should be. I worked with motherless kittens, who frightened and anxious had no understanding why life had dealt them such a raw deal by prematurely taking their mother away. In both cases what was needed was kindness and understanding.

There are many roles I have in life but the choice to be Cat-Dad's devoted friend will always remain my first. He's often told me that although we can never go back and make a new beginning in life, anyone can start from now and choose to make a brand new end. I intend to continue making the right choices so that when my end comes, I will know it is better than where I began.

I invite all of you, dear readers, to join me in that choice.

With purrs to all,

Sasha
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There is a choice you have to make in everything you do, so keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you!
- John Wooden