Lil Gertie wasn’t exactly the type of cat I would looking for. I go into wanting a black cat knowing the realities I might not connect with a black cat. Anyway, after filling out the survey, I talked with a volunteer who I know from his place of work. He said we have a cat who needs to be an only cat. She is all white and the two of you share the same name. Then he explained to me about her ear issues and fell in love with out looking at her. So I decided to not put her on hold as I wasn’t sure at the moment and wanted a couple days to think about while still giving her a chance of being adopted sooner as I made my decision. So two days later I made my decision to adopt Lil Gertie. Sadly she got cancer and ended up having a mini stroke. It was the best choice to let her cross over even I only had a year and have with her. She got her furrever home and helped with some hard shit like the the first holiday season without my grandma as well as the first Mother’s day with my grandma. She was also there during the first anniversary of my grandma’s death. As much as I miss Lil Gertie, her untimely death helped me put into action becoming a volunteer at PAWS Cat City in Seattle.

I now volunteer there and started January of 2020 so we continued volunteer through mid-March. Volunteers were furghloaded till June were a hand full off us could start back up and I was one of the first to start volunteer again.

I was very lucky when I adopted him because it was right before the lock down from Covid and he helped me through the initial part of isolating and not go to big gatherings like I was planning on going to. Billie was the on constant in my life during Covid-19 pandemic. In fact he has helped me be more mindful in my life and realized he has now ended two jobs with me and started two new jobs one of which I started this week. Billie helped me realize that working nights once a week and an occasional on call shift was not for me so I got a job as a full time Peer Specialist at an agency that treated me like family. Sadly after being there for a year and half the agency permanently closed its doors. Staff found out March 1st of this year and I didn’t find out my lay off date till two weeks before hand. My last day was June 3rd. Billie was and is my calming affect through all the recent work stuff. If I didn’t have my loving Billie on June 3rd, I don’t think I would have lived much less continue to want to work. Billie’s unconditional love is what got me through a very dark time that I hadn’t had in four years. The Healing affect of Billie helped me get back on track and I started a new job this week as peer.

Both of my cats have healed me in ways with their love that human could not do. My cats are family to me even the ones I help take care of at my volunteer job at Cat City. Thank you for listening to me babble on about my cats. Peace Out, World and go pet a cat.