Adventures in Aging - Natasha

I’ve had the end of that lingering cold all week (if you ride transit, you know the one I mean). Capable of going to work, but coughing and feeling a bit run down. Makes me think of how life might be a decade or two ahead, if I regularly felt like this.

There’s already a small crowd gathered when Maddie’s opens. It’s good to see all the people, because it means more animals finding homes, though busy days are hard on the shy kitties. I check in on 6 year old Natasha, a tender-hearted tortie who tends to hide. She enjoys being petted, but I’m drawn away before I can coax her out.

A woman with two young girls wants to find a pair of kittens. They need to be able to handle lots of commotion, she says, which is crystal clear in interacting with the high energy kids. The older one listens carefully when I discuss quiet voices and gentle play before meeting a pair of feisty kittens. The other kid is just a toddler, and does more screeching than talking. The mom is at least attentive, and decides to depart before a full meltdown occurs. She says she’ll need to come back with a third kid before making a decision.

I help another group looking for kittens, three young adults who are gushing about all the cute cats. The one who’s doing the adopting spots darling cream tabby Clementine, and it’s a near instant match. The half grown kitten is completely adorable, nuzzling and purring and happy to be held, and the woman who wants to adopt her can hardly bear to leave her long enough to finish the paperwork out front. This will be her first cat in her new adult life.

I go to visit a cute tabby boy named Jake who reminds me of an older, braver Inch Worm. Or how that kitten could become when he’s older and better adjusted: still cautious but more warm and cuddly and quicker to feel at ease. It’s a funny thing about our pets – with their shorter life spans, we get to see them at more phases of their lives. Where our own (at least when we’re not dragging around sick) seem to transition so slowly.

I’m thinking about that dynamic as I meet a middle aged woman who’s accompanying her senior mom. This lady has got a lot of criteria, mostly unspoken, and wants to move slowly, cat by cat, around the shelter. The daughter mentions to me that this is not their first time here. The pair clearly have a warm bond, but they’re driving each other a little nuts too.

They have similar outlooks, similar degrees of impatience, but I imagine it’s hard for the mom to remember that time in her life when she was too busy to do something thoroughly and carefully, never mind it stretches over days or weeks. And the daughter must be telling herself, I won’t be like that when I’m older. But it sneaks up on all of us, doesn’t it.