It’s been a very emotional past few days for me. I’m finally at a point where I think I’m ready with my feelings, and I can actually say something that makes sense. If you’ve been following my Instagram, or read a few posts back, I’ve said briefly that I’ve been fostering two kittens. It’s been a good month since, and now we’re at the start of June, and the kittens have been adopted.
Fostering Kittens:
involves availing your home to be a safe space for kittens to stay in. This means cat proofing your house where appropriate. My windows had a simple mesh placed over it, where the cats would not be allowed to climb through. Later, we also found out that there should have been better ways to manage the kittens climbing through our cutlery and crockery.
As this is going on in your house, a listing for adoption goes up, and the kittens can be legally adopted into your home. I don’t know what the full process of that is, and would probably be an adoption post on its own, but all I did this time was fostering. The foster family is given priority to decide if it wants to keep the kittens and adopt them. Unfortunately for us, we’re in the middle of too many things for us to take on a pair of kittens that would grow into full size cats.
Then comes separation
And so, the time comes when potential adopters come by to visit, and to check out the kittens. It’s a simple process, they just see if they like the kittens, and if they’re okay to take on the ownership of the kittens in the long run. If they’re okay, then they will have to start the process of cat proofing their house, and getting all the necessary parts in place.
This process takes about a week or so on the quick side, and for us, it took about two weeks for the adoption family to confirm that their house was ready for the kittens to come.
Emotions
It wasn’t always easy taking care of the kittens, in fact, it was really quite a challenge. At the first week, they couldn’t jump too high, so we could prepare their meals easily, and they would just wait somewhere for us to get their food ready. Then after some time, they could jump higher, and get in the way of preparing food.
I remember one morning, I was preparing the meal, and they jumped on the plate as I was weighing it, so I basically grabbed one of the kittens and the plate of food, and put them into a corner and sort of left the other kitten to struggle to eat whatever was left of the food. Probably a spoonful or less. I was really upset. The kitten with less food kept whining cause it was hungry, but it was because the other kitten had taken all the food, I wanted them to learn. The whining continued but my logical brain took over and realised cats cannot reason the same way. I took the kitten that ate more food, and put him into a locked room, then I fed the other kitten a full bowl of food. It was a very angry morning, but it forced me to think very creatively how to feed the kittens in a way that would be fair. Great lesson on how to think creatively.
By the last week, we couldn’t eat at home, because the kittens would jump into our food, or try to stick their hands into anything. i wasn’t cooking anything, but just eating out before rushing back to take care of the kittens. It was really quite a mess of a schedule.
There were good emotions too. The kittens were quite afraid of the rain and thunder, and during one of the nights, they were hidden away into corners of my house, trying to hide out. So I sat in the middle of my home, and they came out to sit near me. I placed them on my lap or around me, and pat them to sleep slowly. That really made me grow to love them, and want to protect them.
And then there were deep sadness that overwhelmed, especially when they left and were leaving. The night before they left, we tried to sleep outside with them, but instead they were just running all over and having the zoomies. I still spent some time to hug them to sleep, or to just hold their paws through the day. I did this thing one with of them, where I would wrap the kitten with my tshirt, and pouch her up, like a little baby, then walk around the house. This gave her some sense of comfort, and I walked around the house like this for quite some time.
And the moment they left, I cried, so hard. I missed them being around, hiding in the different corners. I missed having a little one to pat to sleep at night, or to carry around the day. I missed the hassles of having to feed them, or the frustration that came around our lifestyles. It felt real, and something bigger than ourselves, Clarice and me.
The next day, I came back to the house alone, and I said “Hi Kittens, I miss you” to no kittens being around. Then I just walked around the house bawling my eyes out. Just plain and simple wailing, as if someone died. Because at that point, someone did leave me, and it was the kittens.
I searched out how to deal with the loss of a pet, and I just kept looking for help. Recommendations were things like writing memorials (like this one), or to share with people who understood it. So I wrote a really sad post on Instagram, and cried profusely as I wrote it. I just missed them so much at that time.
It was really a mix of the little things, having to close the door slow, or having to watch my feet. Paying attention to what time it was and what food was needed to be prepared. Closing the door quick enough at times as well, to prevent them from going in and out of places, or the weird visits while I was on the toilet. It was really a mix of all these things.
In terms of lifestyle, it was a lot of coordination. Both Clarice and my own schedules needed to be aligned to see who needed to be feeding at which time slots. We were running around often, trying to settle our work timings, our free slots, and just trying to get by alive. It was a really crazy thing.
And all these things were things I missed. I really cherished my time with the kittens and learning from all these things. I miss them so much, but they’re really just too much for me to handle in my life, at this time.
But now
Now they’re in a good place. They’re relaxed a lot more, and I think they’re really having a great space of their own to grow more, and become the kittens they could really be. I hope that all of the time we spent together was good for them, and I’m glad that they’ve survived us well. We were just trying to make sure they were staying alive at some point, but I think we really loved them deeply. I know I definitely did.
I’ll do a few more posts coming up soon about some moments with them, but I’ll stop it here for now. I’m really tired, and I’m just putting my thoughts out before I forget them.
I miss you kittens, hope you both are surviving well.