We've Been Adopted

If you stopped by Thoughts in Progress on Wednesday, April 7^th, you may have seen where I mentioned we’d been adopted by a yellow tabby. Several of you asked to know more. Well, I’m finally getting around to telling you more. BTW, thanks for asking.

First, if you visit here often you probably already know this but for anyone who is new to the blog, here’s a bit of background on why being adopted was big for us.

Traveler

In 2011, I took in a beautiful grey stray cat I called Traveler (his photo also remains on the sidebar). Long story short, he became a huge part of my life. He was my fur baby as I have no children. Traveler moved with me to Alabama in 2015 and seemed to love living on the lake adapting to his new life with ease. He became ill in 2019 and we learned from our vet that he was much older than I had guessed as he was a grown cat when he found me. We treated his illness for almost a year, but we lost him a year ago on April 3^rd (2020). His little heart just finally gave out.

His loss hit us hard. One good thing about the pandemic was that we were able to be home with him 24/7 the last few weeks of his life. Even now as I write this, it’s through tears. While we weren’t really sure we were ready to bring another cat into our lives, fate had other plans for us.

I tell you all of that to let you know that we have been adopted by a yellow tabby. Some might call him an orange tabby, I’m really not sure. Tell me what you think.

Persi

The process started back in late December (2020) when this big bundle of fur appeared as if out of thin air. My partner was out tending to some plants in the yard and looked down to see a cat rubbing around his legs. The cat then followed him around the plants checking each to see what my partner was doing to them. Then the cat started rolling around on the grass in front of him as if to say, “see I want to play.” The cat was friendly and followed him around for a while that afternoon.

We had not seen the cat anywhere before in our yard or the neighborhood. He was just there and then was gone again. We didn’t see where he came from or where he went. The next day he was back so I picked up a bag of cat food. We fed him on the front porch and by the next day he wanted to come inside. He would only stay for short periods after eating and would want to go back outside. We didn’t want to force him to stay in as we didn’t know where he came from. But we did start trying out names for him. We settled on Persi, short for persistent since he seemed to be persistent in being a part of our lives. Each day he stayed longer and became more and more a part of our family.

It’s been almost five months now that he’s been with us. He stays in all day, goes out for only a few hours in the evening when he wants to, and come in at night when we call to play with his toys and sleep with us or in his new bed. I’m amazed each day that he’s with us. We don’t know where he came from or why he showed up here. He just seemed to appear at a time when we needed him without us knowing we were ready.

There are times he reminds me of Traveler. The way he seems to understand what we’re saying and what it means. The way he lays sometimes, the strange positions he gets in. I’ve seen him laying near Traveler’s grave and a part of me wonders if Traveler may have guided him to us.

While we still miss Traveler terribly everyday (and always will), Persi has brought us much joy and continues to amaze us.

Thanks for stopping by today and letting me share our “adoption” story with you. Have you ever been adopted by a stray?