Lauren Heffker
Up until about a month and a half ago, I didn’t consider myself a cat person. It's not that I disliked them, I've just always thought I was better suited to dogs for their earnest, messy, and playful nature. But this year continues to defy any fixed notion I once had about myself or my life, and I am here to tell you I have been converted.
Thanks to my wonderful Country Roads colleague Jordan LaHaye, in late July I adopted Luna—a scrawny, bright-blue-eyed, six-week-old kitten. She was found on the side of the road, the sole survivor of her litter. Like many people, I had been contemplating getting a pandemic pet for awhile, but didn’t yet feel ready for the all-consuming endeavor of dog-rearing. “A cat I can handle,” I thought. I remember feeling apprehensive upon meeting her, nervous about the responsibility I had agreed to take on. I take care of our family pets, but Luna was the first to be mine.
Luna possesses the same innocent naïveté and rambunctious spunk as a toddler. She is endlessly inquisitive, as kittens tend to be, constantly climbing from one household surface to the next and finding new hiding spots from which to surprise me. She has bouts of frenzied energy, fearlessly leaping and flipping and falling onto her long, lanky legs so often and recovering so quickly each time that, mid-laughter, I can’t even accuse her of lacking grace. We’re still working on a few ground rules, like not climbing up the curtains, or that my bare legs are off-limits as a personal scratching post. She has broken three of my planters so far, sometimes likes to play fetch, and is growing at a pace far too fast for my liking. She holds her own against our dogs, bowing up to them with a me-against-the-world mentality. They don’t quite know what to make of her—this small, feisty, furry thing—and physically cower in her presence. Being the alpha is all about attitude, after all.
Lauren Heffker
But Luna’s best quality is that she is generous with her affection. She is not aloof or averse to adoration; her preferred place of repose is lying directly on top of my chest or curled into the crook of my arm. She falls asleep in absurd positions: cheek-to-cheek with me and paws raised in mid-air, or belly-up with her rabbit-like feet outstretched. As I type this, she is nestled atop my shoulder; she keeps me company working from home, kindly reminding me to take breaks throughout the day by pouncing onto my laptop keyboard and purring in my face as if to say, “That’s enough of that for now.” She asks me to stop spending so much time doomscrolling on my phone and devote my attention to her instead. She often follows me around, ducking and weaving through my legs as I walk, nearly tripping over her. If I pause and glance down, I find her standing between my feet, looking up at me.
“I think I won the kitten lottery,” I said when introducing her to a friend. I’m aware that this parental sense of pride is ubiquitous, but that doesn’t matter to me all that much. There’s a certain reassurance that accompanies this belonging, when something or someone naturally fits into our lives. Like things have happened, are happening, will happen, as they are supposed to. I don’t know how much of that is true, but I do know that the days don’t feel so heavy with her around. This year has drawn and drained from me, but despite this scarcity, Luna shows me how I have so much still to give in return.
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