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One day, when I was about 8 years old, my mom and I were leaving the town library. Parked in front of the library was a cat adoption truck. For some reason, I wanted to check it out, to which my mom gave the okay. This was the beginning of a life changing moment for us. Fun fact: One of the people working in the truck was a teacher from the elementary school I went to.
Immediately upon entering the truck, one of the cats, who was in a cage with his sister at the bottom of a stack of three cages, started a conversation with me. Countless minutes go by as I chat with this friendly, furry fella. Eventually the conversation concludes and my mom and I look around at the other cats.
A couple, I believe a boyfriend and a girlfriend, come in and look around as well. When they’re done, they decide that they want to adopt the cat that I befriended. I started crying as in that short amount of time, I felt I’d made a big connection with the feline. They felt bad so they decided not to adopt that cat and let my mom and I adopt him. So we were originally going to go into the truck just to look at all the cats, but now, we are going to be leaving with another member in our family.
Since we’ve never had a pet before, we had to go to PETCO and get the essential items for a cat, and my mom had to sign all the adoption papers. Welcome to the family, Gavin!
It was definitely an experience getting used to having a pet for the first time. Before we were fully comfortable with each other, Gavin and I would always accidentally startle each other if we turned a corner and the other was there. We became good friends very quickly, though, and to this day, he is my best friend. Nowadays, he’s also friendly with strangers, where formally he was scared of people and hid.
One of my favorite things to do is observe Gavin just existing as a cat. It’s funny to watch how he operates when he isn’t interacting with us. On the flip side, there are moments where I don’t see him as a cat, but rather as just another small human.
Gavin recently turned 17 in human years, which is mid 80’s in cat years. The only major tells of him being older is hearing loss and sleeping more. We did some tests like clapping and jingling keys to make sure he wasn’t just ignoring us. For a while it seemed like he lost most of his hearing, but now it seems like he’s regained some of it. Besides that, he is healthy and still looks young.
I don’t want his last day to ever arrive, but when it does, words won’t be able to describe how much I will miss him. I cried when I realized he was going deaf since it was a reality check that he’s older. While he is still here, though, I’m going to spend as much time with him as I can. ~ T
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