This is Harrison.
We got him and our other cat, Sofie…
…as a pair in the spring of 2018. He was 10 months old, and a great cat. They brought so much joy and love into our lives. They piled by our feet to sleep at night, distracted us when we worked from home, and were so heart-warming to watch together.
They came with us as we got our life together and became a family.
Then in the spring of 2020 when the world was shutting down and so much chaos was rising we had our own moment of heartbreak.
One morning Sofie never came home. We made the mistake of not closing them in for the night at the usual time. When we went to bed they were both outside, and when we got up in the morning only Harrison was there for breakfast.
We don’t know what happened, and unfortunately given where we lived at the time the most likely scenario is that she fell prey to a predator. We were devastated. Of course we knew that the day would always come to say goodbye to our cats, but we took for granted that we would have more time than we did.
It was a hard lesson to learn.
Harrison, bless his heart, took on some of the roles and behaviors that Sofie had occupied. Rather than being outside for hours on end each day he would come home every couple hours at most and check in. He became noticeably more cuddly and even started sleeping under the covers with us at times. The three of us became even more bonded through all of our sheltering in place. He learns our routines and adapts to them, which we think is pretty cool!
But it was never meant to be just the three of us.
When we moved to Portland Harrison bonded with my sister’s cat “Mia” a.k.a. “Kitty”. Seeing them together solidified our resolve to get another animal in our lives. When Kitty (and my sister too) moved to Boston we set our intention to find our next pet.
We searched briefly and then someone found us.
Our friend Jason was fostering Mowgli.
Five months old, lovey, playful, and ready for a family.
We. Snapped. Him. Up. The only thing to work out was…he was 1,000 miles away.
It might sound crazy to go 1,000 miles for a cat – the adoption representative even asked us if there were no cats in our area (haha!). But we’ve learned in life there are some things that come along and are just the right fit. Besides we’re self-employed millennials who are living with family to save money, so we drew the obvious conclusion – road trip to L.A. 🙂
Jason graciously offered to meet us part way and our California Wine Country couples retreat/business conference/cat exchange was born!
As I write this we are heading back to Portland tomorrow. We have a few days, a long car ride with a cat, and an entire adjustment period ahead of us. And we have high hopes for it all.
If Mowgli could understand we would want him to know:
Life is going to get a little more chaotic before it calms down, but we have a great home waiting for him. And to us, he’s been the answer to our prayers since the day he was born.
