Friendship Forged
My plan to move from Las Vegas to Dallas in 2022 with nothing but four suitcases was contingent on finding a cat companion quickly upon arrival. A home for me has always been a person or animal.
When I land in Dallas, my heart beats like a bee jumping jacks. I stand on the precipice of many-a firsts. First time moving for a job. First time a job felt more like a career.
Also, why didn’t anyone tell me until I landed that my apartment is in tornado alley? I specifically said, when watching The Wizard of Oz for the first time as a young girl, that no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks would I live in a place with those monsters.
Once I land at my aunt and uncle's in Dallas (me a little bit to tears the whole time), a plan is made: acquire a mattress, acquire a cat, acquire silverware and toilet paper.
With a mattress tied down in the trunk, my mom enthusiastically talks up a kitten named Tabitha at a shelter called Operation Kindness. I’m looking out the window like a preteen caught in the feels of an Evanescence song. I don’t feel that feeling of “huzzah! new era starting! we made it!” Instead, my stomach feels like a slimy plum pit. Did I make a mistake? Mom! Take me home!
Except I have no real home to return to. I moved to Las Vegas after a relationship ended, and I always knew it was a way station to get my shit together before launching into something new.
In the hallways of Operation Kindness, a volunteer apologizes with “Tabitha was literally just adopted.” I feel nothing. No offense, Tabitha. I’m not myself.
We happen to be just outside the Kitten NICU. Through a glass window, a gloved hand sets one frizzy dollop of sweet potato atop another frizzy poof of carrot cake. Two kittens, not food, and with gloopy eyes and the most fragile figures. One shakes to make it onto all four paws and hobble-falls towards me. He says, “Hello, I’m happy you made it. Now take us home. That’s my brother over there.” Fred did the talking, and George did the winking.
We make it to the Target parking lot where my aunt plans to stay behind and watch the two kittens I adopted instead of one. I now have two cats and no pillows. Am I doing any of this right? I lean down in the backseat so I may see Fred and George fully. All eyes and ears. I feel it.
I whisper, “It’s ok. I know what I’m doing here. The three of us, we got this.” And I mean it.
I feel home.
When our first tornado visits only a week after moving in, we hunker in the downstairs closet with our respective snacks. Under the glow of a lantern I found at that Target, Fred & George look like foofy gremlins the size of my palm. We last the 20 minutes without electricity. When the sirens finish, I wonder what kind of world of chaos will await us outside the closet door. We huddle a second longer. Forging our home through a bruise-green storm.
I reminisce while standing, now, rooted, between Fred and George on our balcony among the trees in Houston. We reconnect today, as I return from my week-long sojourn for cycle 5 chemo treatment. We are forging forward through yet another storm, together.
Huzzah! I am home from cycle 5 and beginning my recovery period over the next two weeks. I appreciate you all reading along! My insights and emotions are a delicate purple tornado themselves. I’m curious to see how they will express themselves on here. My ultimate hope is to protect hope. Hope exists even when the last eyelash falls.
With love and treats,
Nutmeg, Fred & George
