nonfiction
Letting Love In
Originally published in Chicken Soup for the Soul
Your heart knows the way. Run in that direction. — Rumi
In the fall of 2010, my two-year-old cat Chulo was a typical only child. Rescuing him two years prior had transformed both of our lives. I wanted to give other cats the same chance at happiness, so I became a feline foster mother to prepare other cats for their forever homes.
I’d heard about other foster parents getting attached to their foster pets, but my heart was already taken. There was no way I could love another animal the way I loved Chulo.
The shelter started contacting me with requests to foster, but the timing was always off. My husband (then boyfriend) Johan and I were always traveling or hosting guests. Then, in the spring of 2011, they contacted me with a proposal: A one-month-old kitten needed foster care until she was big enough to adopt.
“I’m here to pick up Lena,” I told the woman behind the desk.
She disappeared into an adjacent room and emerged with a pet carrier. Lena announced her presence with a high-pitched squeak. I crouched down to get a good look at the stray. She was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, much smaller than Chulo had been when I’d adopted him.
“Bring her back for a checkup in about a month,” the woman said. “When she weighs two pounds, we can put her up for adoption.”
We all took to Lena right away. Even Chulo found her irresistible, grooming her soft gray belly. Over the following weeks, Lena brought much light and laughter to our little family. Despite her tiny size, her rambunctious energy was larger than life, and it transformed the way all of us interacted. For her part, she also seemed to feel right at home with us.
Lena was always challenging her foster brother to a play fight. When I was in the bath, she swatted at the running water. After a long day, she sought out her foster father for cuddles and naps.
As I prepared to return her to the shelter, I noticed that one of her eyes was irritated. Her doctor gave me some ointment and asked if I could keep her for two more weeks “just until the eye heals.” I agreed. By that time, she’d been with us for a month. What were another two weeks?
Or so I thought.
When the shelter told me to write a summary about Lena for their website, I gushed about her outstanding qualities: “bunny-soft,” “playful,” and “sweet as can be.” But all anyone had to do was look at that adorable face. Lena would find an adopter right away, no matter what I wrote.
But who? That question began to haunt me. One night, it woke me from a dead sleep. I turned on the bedside lamp, and Johan groaned.
“What if Lena’s owners abandon her?” I asked him in a panic. “What if they let her outside, and she gets hit by a car? Will they keep an eye on her while running a bath?”
Johan rolled over to face me.
“You know why you’re worried, don’t you?” he asked. I didn’t respond. “Because you love her.”
“Ridiculous!” I said, turning off the lamp.
But I couldn’t fall back asleep. I’d been so sure that my heart couldn’t accommodate another pet that I’d never worried about loving Lena. The truth was, I couldn’t imagine giving her back to the shelter. Not now. She felt like part of our family. Johan was right. I had fallen in love with her, and I didn’t even know it.
“It’s okay,” Johan whispered in the darkness. “I love her, too.”
Bean, as we would come to call her, taught me about the heart’s limitless capacity. She showed me that my heart could expand to let love in. I realized that I was never really her foster mother. I was always just her mother. I’m a foster failure. And it’s one of the best things to ever happen to me.
Originally published in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Lessons Learned from My Cat, 2023
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