Month: April 2025

Onward, Always… mostly

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ 1 Comment

I started writing this five years ago—something I planned to read at the 50th anniversary party we had in the works. But a global pandemic had other plans and crushed both our gathering and my beautiful Canva invitations in one fell swoop (I still have them).

I found the piece again a few months ago while combing through some old files. It was titled “Geez, Jack,” and curiosity made me open it. I’d honestly forgotten I’d even started it. But I knew right away: I needed to finish it by April 11.

As I reworked it, updated the timeline, and started searching for a title, I laughed out loud when “Pack the Car and Beat the Kids” rose to the top—because honestly, that would be on brand. But sixty years of love deserves a little more reverence.

So instead, here’s a tribute to the chaos, the steadiness, the laughter, and the legacy of two people who somehow raised all of us without entirely losing their minds.

Mostly.

They’ve been together for sixty years—five years of young love, scribbled poems, and dreaming out loud… followed by fifty-five years of marriage. A lifetime, really.

They met at Clarion University—young, curious, and entirely unaware of the life they’d build together. My mum thought he was the richest man she’d ever met. Why? Because he’d eaten in a restaurant once and owned a sport coat. And in her world, that was pure glamour.

My dad? He was a hopeless romantic from the very beginning. He wrote poems to her in the margins of his class notes, passed them in secret, folded like treasure—and then tucked them away to be found on her 75th birthday. He loved her then the way he still does now—with gentle consistency and a wink of mischief.

They came from different worlds. Sandy was a good girl—hard-working, well-behaved, always chasing good grades and never stepping out of line. Jack was a loner—quiet but stubborn, following no one’s rules but his own. She grew up in a big, loud, messy family. He came from a stricter, harsher household where love wasn’t spoken often. Each of them was searching for something—something steadier, something new. She found a quiet rebel with a crooked smile and a kind heart. He found a woman and a family he could love—one that loved him back.

They were both education majors. My mum, Sandy, was born to teach—patient, fierce, and full of heart. My dad, Jack, not so much. He worked odd jobs, took what came, and held our family together on a patchwork of effort and determination until he started his own company. And then he was gone a lot—traveling for work, chasing something steadier for us.

Our childhood vacations weren’t picture-perfect. They were tacked onto his business trips to exotic destinations like Corpus Christi and St. Louis. Someone was always picking their nose, climbing over a railing, not touching someone else, or refusing to wear pants—and that was just in the photos. We cried to be carried, got speeding tickets in St. Louis, threw up at every rest stop, accidentally set the dunes on fire, and broke down more times than I can remember. Once, we even roasted hermit crabs on the car floor driving home from Corpus Christi.

We were the Griswolds on vacation before that shit was even cool.

We slept on cots in crowded bedrooms, melting in the wet Florida heat. We camped in a pop-up that had to be carefully balanced at night or it would tip. We laughed when my brother got stuck with the “table” as his bed in that old camper. And we fought over the way-back seat like it was prime real estate. We learned the phrase “beat and pack,” and we knew exactly what it meant.

But no matter where we were, the Easter Bunny always found us, and Santa always knew to leave our presents—even when we weren’t home.
And somehow, that’s how the meaning of home was built.

Home wasn’t just a place.
It was an idea.
It was a world.
It was something we could leave and still belong to.

The world was big, and they wanted us to see it—but we always came back.
We could always come back.

They planted seeds that rooted.
And they held.
They’re holding still.

We were poor by most standards. Hand-me-downs from the church, from neighbors. But we didn’t really notice. Or maybe we just didn’t care. We had each other—and that was everything.

As we grew, the business took root. Mum went back to the classroom (and became my fourth-grade teacher, which deserves its own award). We started taking vacations to the beach—a real vacation, the kind you take on purpose. We packed boogie boards (the cheap, white Styrofoam kind) into the Suburban and stopped twenty times to rearrange them because the squeaking was making Jack insane. We still broke down at toll booths. We still threw up at rest areas. We still fought over the back seat.

We continued to grow. And as we became teenagers—and awful—they did their best to temper our behavior, love us unconditionally, and set boundaries we were absolutely sure to ignore. They told us, “One day, you’ll thank me,” and quietly told themselves, “One day, they’ll thank us.”

They were right. Eventually.

They taught us how to drive. How to play ball. How to be kind to those around us who were different or had less. They attended every game. Every practice. And they bravely said goodbye as, one by one, we graduated and left home.

And when their season of raising kids began to quiet, they didn’t slow down—they just shifted gears.

They traveled back and forth between our schools to watch us play, pick us up, celebrate our birthdays. Sometimes they even showed up when we didn’t.

They never missed a thing. Not one graduation. Not a birthday. Not a communion. Even for the kids that weren’t technically “theirs.” They just showed up. Always. Even if it meant driving all night between events.

They still do.

Now, at 77 and 78, with the kids grown, moved out, married, and raising children of their own, they’re road warriors—taking long, meandering road trips just because. They turn opportunity into adventure and “seek the great perhaps” better than anyone I’ve ever met. They travel the world with too much luggage, curiosity, open minds, and open hearts. They don’t worry too much—or too little—and sometimes that cavalier, caution-to-the-wind attitude drives me crazy.

They go to Steelers games and wave their terrible towels like they’re still in their twenties. They cheer at hockey games. They play bar trivia like it’s life or death. They finish jigsaw puzzles faster than I can open the box.

It’s been sixty years of laughter, grit, faith, and fierce loyalty. Sixty years of a love that was never flashy, never loud, but always steady. Always real. Over time, they developed their own language—inside jokes, whispered prayers, and unspoken understandings.

You can read a lifetime in one look.

And yeah, sometimes I call them the Bickersons. Sometimes I say, “We put the fun in dysfunctional.” Sometimes I joke with people, “I love my family—especially my dad—but he’s more like a hostage.”

But the truth is, what they have—and what they’ve built and endured—is rare. It’s precious.
It’s pretty f’n amazing…

They gave the world me (you’re welcome), and my siblings (pretty cool, I guess). And when that work was done, they set out to fill every corner of that world with the kind of love that stretches—onward and always.

Together, they built a life layered with meaning—raising children who question everything, who love deeply, who argue passionately, and who believe in possibility, because they were raised by two people who did.

Now, they spend most days doting on their grandchildren—who are growing up inside the story they started, who will one day inherit it, and who will, one day, write their own.

They are the kind of love that endures.
The kind that makes room for change.
The kind that still holds hands when no one’s looking.

Happy 55th Anniversary, Mum and Dad.
Your story reminds me to hope.
To laugh often and forgive quickly.
To wander and to want.
And to always say yes to the trip—even if it’s to St. Louis.

How to Steal a Cat (and heal a broken heart)

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ 1 Comment

I didn’t set out to steal a cat. Or write a story about it.
I set out to survive the kind of grief that guts you from the inside. The kind that makes you keep seeing shadows that aren’t there and crying in grocery store aisles. In the end I guess that kind of story kind sort of writes itself and then waits for you to recognize it (even if it takes six years) and sit down and get on with it.

This isn’t really a story about theft.
It’s about loss. And love. And the messy, irrational things we do to feel whole again.
It’s about Stuart, the cat who broke my heart by being the best thing in it.
And Stella, the tiny, cross-eyed stowaway who climbed into the hollow he left behind.

Most people think he was named Stu because it was short for stupid. And who knows, maybe at first it was. But for as long as I can remember, across those too-short fifteen years, it was short for Stuart James, named after James Stuart II, my favorite of all the British monarchs (of course I have a favorite monarch).

He was my best friend in more ways than I can explain.

He was weird-looking, lanky, scraggly, even at his healthiest.

He walked on his tiptoes, had a wonky eye, and scars on his nose, lip, and head.

Reminders of a life on the streets, and brushes with death that probably claimed a few of his nine lives before I claimed him as my own.

He was almost all white, except for an orange-ringed tail and a few scattered orange patches across his back and head.

And he was loyal.

He knew all my stories. I won’t pretend he didn’t judge me…he was a cat, after all, and judging is innate to his kind, regardless of his judgy nature, he loved me unconditionally. And he never told a soul the deepest, darkest secrets I whispered to him at night.

He was quirky in the way only soulmates are. He did this thing I’ve never seen another cat do. He would jump straight from the ground into my arms. Not in the slow, climbing way kittens do on Instagram reels. No. He’d pace in front of me, mewing, while I patted my chest and asked, “Wanna come up?” He’d pace some more, maybe complain a little louder, and then…leap. A full five-foot arc, right into my open arms.

I thought it was a magic trick. Sure, dogs do it. Kids do it. (even educated bees do it?) But cats? Cats don’t perform. They do what they want, when they want. For Stu, that leap was the ultimate act of trust, me, trusting he wouldn’t claw the shit out of my chest, and him, trusting I’d catch him every time.

He was also, hands down, one of the most expensive things I’ve ever owned, aside from my house and current car. I’m pretty sure his vet bills totaled more than my first car. There were at least three emergency vet visits: urinary blockages, a chewed lily leaf (how that didn’t kill him, I’ll never know), and various death-defying stunts. But every time, the vet would say, “He can make it if we treat him.” And how do you say no to that?

As much as I loved him, I’ll admit it. I get mad about it sometimes. Pets are heartbreak by design. I can’t remember which comedian said it, but the bit went something like: “Look, kids…a puppy! In fifteen years it’s going to break your heart and crush your soul.”

We don’t deserve pets.
And they don’t stay long enough.
As fate would have it, they stay just long enough to become a permanent part of your soul.
And then they die.
And you get a little box of ashes to keep in your china cabinet.
(At least that’s where I keep mine)
Maybe you get a ceramic paw print too—someone smashes their dead paw into clay before they set them on fire.
It’s absurd.
It’s tender.
It’s cruel.

I watched him grow old. In the last few months, I could see him fading. Slow down. He stopped jumping into my arms. He didn’t even pace for it anymore. He just watched me, his body still trying to obey the instincts that had always made him bold, but the strength wasn’t there. I started letting him come outside with me. He never wandered, just found a sunny patch of grass and curled into it like he was part of the earth itself. He moved slower. Slept longer. Ate less. No matter his age, he still followed me to bed. Our bed is high, raised up on a platform that takes a small leap even for a healthy cat. But somehow, every night, he made it. He’d settle between our pillows, tuck himself close, and stay there all night. In the morning, he’d stretch his paws out, touch my nose, and meet my eyes with that same quiet knowing he always had.

That was my life for fifteen years.

I don’t know how I knew, but I knew.
Some deep feeling inside me.
Maybe it was just because he looked tired.

His body was thin, almost brittle. His breathing was shallow, less… like a clock winding down. Each tick growing further apart. A countdown you can hear and feel. One you try to ignore.

His fur wasn’t matted, but it was off. Dry, unkempt. He had lost his shine.
And his eyes, they were still soulful, still saw into me, but there was something else in them now.
A pleading. A knowing.

And as I looked into his eyes, I saw it.

And I knew.

This was our last night.

He curled into the crook of my arm, like always. I cued up our playlist, The Droge & Summers Blend, a song called Two of the Lucky Ones, was on first. It was one of his favorites.

I pulled him closer to me and I started to cry.

As Peter Droge sang by the light of a setting sun I whispered “You can go now baby. Mama will be ok if you need to go. I’ll be ok, I’ll be ok, I’ll be ok…”

The next morning, we woke to find he had wet the bed between our pillows. He didn’t try to hide it. Didn’t move from it. He didn’t look ashamed, he just looked… finished. He had listened. And I had promised. 

So I called our vet. I made the appointment.

When the time came, I held him through both injections.
I held him after the vet whispered, “He’s gone.”
I kept holding him while my body shook and the tears fell in heavy, soaking drops.

T stood beside me, close but not touching.
He was sobbing too.
But I think he knew, if he touched me, I would collapse.
I was tethered to this limp, lifeless body, and I wasn’t ready to let go.

T whispered, “He loved you so much.”

I cried so hard the vet tech cried too.
Even Dr. Plott cried.
I didn’t stop crying for days.

(I’m crying now as I write…and rewrite this.
I don’t cry less with each version.
I’ve come to accept this will always hurt.)

Time doesn’t heal all wounds.
That’s bullshit.
That’s what people say when they don’t know what else to say.
When you’re sobbing over a cat and your grief makes them uncomfortable.

I loved that fucking cat. And when he left, it felt like someone reached inside me and took the part I hadn’t realized was holding everything else together. My world cracked wide open. I couldn’t speak his name without breaking. I couldn’t sit in the places he used to sleep. I couldn’t bear the silence.

And then… came a text.

Two days after I held Stuart for the last time, I was still crying in waves, grief arriving in strange, sharp bursts, like my body kept remembering what my heart already knew.

The text was from a friend. No context. Just a photo of a tiny, somewhat cross-eyed Siamese kitten with huge, ridiculous blue eyes and ears too big for her head. Below it, a message:

“I know you just lost Stu… but do you want a kitten?”

I stared at the picture for a long time. I felt guilty just looking at it. Like even entertaining the thought was some kind of betrayal. I hadn’t vacuumed up his fur yet. I hadn’t showered, but I had at least washed the bedding. His dish was still in its place.

But the ache inside me was unbearable. My arms felt too empty.

So I replied: “No”.

But, I couldn’t get that picture out of my mind. That tiny kitten looking up at the camera, eyes slightly crossed, ears like satellite dishes, fur too thin to be impressive but thick enough to whisper potential. She wasn’t cute in the obvious way. She was awkward and wild-eyed. Desperate, maybe. But also… cavalier.

Like she was saying: Come get me if you want. If not? I’ll figure it out.

I stared at it again that night. And again the next morning.

I showed T the picture and said, “Can you believe Heather? We don’t want a kitten right now…”

I didn’t respond for three days.

I kept telling myself no.
No, because I wasn’t ready.
No, because she wasn’t him.
No, because I hadn’t even vacuumed. His dish was still there.
His favorite food, Mixed Grill, was still sitting on the counter.
And I still cried every time I walked into the bedroom and settled in without him.

And because I was still seeing him in the periphery, in the margins. Like a comment from an editor I wasn’t ready to read. This heavy reminder of unfinished business. Something that might one day become just a footnote, but for now it lingered and it demanded attention.

The white fake lilies Morgan bought me as a joke would catch the corner of my eye, and for a split second, that flash of white… it was him.

But the picture haunted me (as if I wasn’t haunted enough)—and gave me hope.
I’d open it and stare. Close it. Open it again.
That little punk cat wouldn’t blink.

Finally, I broke.

“Where is she?” I texted.

Heather replied immediately, like she’d been waiting for it.

“At my mom’s camp in the mountains. She just wandered up and she’s worried the stray dogs are going to kill her.”

She sent another picture. Cuter than the last.

Oh…
Well…
Shit.

Now it wasn’t just a maybe-kitten. It was a maybe-murdered kitten.
A potentially soon-to-be tragic-eyed ghost I would also carry around in my chest cavity for the next decade if I didn’t at least try.

The moral math didn’t make sense. I was grieving. I was still crying in the grocery store. I hadn’t cooked, hadn’t slept, hadn’t gone a full day without whispering “I miss you” to a patch of carpet.

But this wasn’t about being ready. It was about not being able to live with myself if I didn’t do something.

I went back to T with the new picture.

He looked at it, nodded slowly. “Yeah… it’s a kitten. And it’s cute.”

I stared at him. “Do we want a kitten?”

He didn’t hesitate. “It’s up to you, babe. I know how bad you’re still hurting.”

I rationalized. “I think Rooney’s lonely. She misses Stu… she needs a friend.”

T raised an eyebrow. “Rooney is fine.”

I wasn’t deterred. “I mean… she seems really sad, doesn’t she? Doesn’t she seem lonely? That’s depression, right?”

He didn’t answer.

So I tried again. “Do you want a kitten?”

He just repeated, soft and steady: “It’s up to you.”

Which, of course, meant: I will support whatever your broken, irrational heart decides to do—even if it means a day trip to the mountains to rescue a stray kitten that probably doesn’t need rescuing. 

We thought she was a stray. Unwanted, unclaimed, a little ghost scratching out an existence around a camp in the mountains of North Carolina. Heather’s mom had found her, said the wild dogs were circling– the kitten wouldn’t last much longer. That was all we knew. That was all I needed to know.

I texted Heather, “Fine. Tell Beth we’ll take her.”

As luck would have it, Beth and Pampa were already heading to South Carolina the next day. She said she could meet us on the way down from the mountains. We picked a Chick-Fil-A in Gastonia. Neutral territory, almost halfway for both of us. Public enough to not feel like a shady animal deal, but not so busy that anyone would ask questions.

So we packed the cat carrier. Gassed up the car. Started driving.

It felt a little ridiculous, even in the moment. Like we were on some noble quest to rescue a lost soul while trying to heal mine. But I didn’t care. I needed something to pour my grief into. I needed something I could save.

T drove. It was quiet. I stared out the window, thinking about how recently I’d made this same kind of drive, but in reverse. From the vet’s office. Without Stuart. With every mile, I doubted myself. I wasn’t ready. But I was already going.

Beth met us in the parking lot, kitten in hand. She was tiny, smaller than I expected. All ears and eyes and fragile limbs, folded into Beth’s arms like a secret.

“I’m so glad you’re taking her,” she said.

I took the kitten carefully, holding her close like she might vanish if I didn’t keep her pressed to me. We made the usual small talk, said thanks, and loaded her into the carrier. I climbed into the back seat beside her. Left the carrier door open. Kept my hand inside.

On the ride home, T kept glancing back at us in the rearview mirror.

“I’ve thought of a name,” he said.

I was sort of shocked. It had taken us weeks to name Rooney. T had been calling her Dan the Adventure Cat when she was still feral in our backyard. Because, as he told me, “all outdoor stray cats are male”. I didn’t get the logic, but I didn’t deny him the fantasy. And when we realized Dan was, in fact, a she, we went through a whole series of terrible almost-names: Chicken. Danielle. Kitten Butt.

Nothing stuck.

Then one day I made the leap—from Dan to Dan Rooney. The Steelers. Pittsburgh.
I remember yelling it down the hall from the toilet:

“ROONEY! We should call her Rooney!”

And that was that. Dan the Adventure Cat, became and is still known to this day as: Dan “the Adventure Cat” Rooney.

So for T to have a name within ten minutes of picking up a kitten we were not prepared for or even sure we wanted…that was impressive.

“Stella Blue,” he said. “You know, because she has blue eyes.”

T’s a Grateful Dead fan. It made sense.

And just like that, she had a name.

Stella. Our new baby.

She didn’t hiss. Didn’t scratch. Just stared. Still wide-eyed. Still that strange blend of desperate and defiant. Like she was thinking, You got me? Fine. Just don’t fuck it up.

When we got home, I decided she needed a bath. She’d been living under a porch, allegedly. Surely she had fleas, mites, worms—something.

I started to run the water and reached to lift her, but then I noticed… she wasn’t dirty. Her coat was clean. Her ears were clear. She didn’t smell like garbage or wet leaves. She didn’t even flinch when I touched her feet.

And then I saw it.

A faint line around her neck.

A collar line.

“T,” I called. “Come here. Look at this.”

He stood beside me, and I pointed. That perfect little imprint. The one you only get from something worn too long to forget.

“This cat was wearing a collar.”

And right then it hit me. It hit us.

I said, “Oh my God.”
T said, “Beth stole this cat.”
We both said,  “And we helped her.”

I made T text Heather.

“Ask her where the cat came from. Don’t let her skip the details. We know the truth”

That’s when we got the whole story.

Apparently, the kitten had wandered up to Beth’s camper and started hanging out under the porch. She’d been wearing a flea collar, one of those cheap, one-size-fits-all kinds. But it was too tight. And whoever had put it on her hadn’t bothered to cut off the excess length, so she was just dragging around six inches of loose collar behind her like a tail extension.

Beth said she was afraid it would get snagged on something and choke her.

So she cut it off.

Which is when, I suppose, she decided the kitten was now hers.
Either to keep, or to give away.

And since she opted for Doorway Number Two…

By extension…ours.

That first week, we kept Stella quarantined in our bedroom.
Just to be safe.
We didn’t want her passing anything to Rooney. We had a vet appointment scheduled, but they couldn’t see us until the following Monday.

It felt responsible, like we were pretending to be people who knew what the hell they were doing.
We’d had cats before…
Just not stolen ones.

So it also felt dangerous.
Because what if she was microchipped?
What if someone had reported her missing?
Or worse…
stolen?

What if by taking her to the vet, we were writing our own ticket to jail?

We lived mostly normal lives during this time, but occasionally one of us would muse outloud, “do they arrest people for stealing cats?”, “since we didn’t cross state lines, this isn’t a federal crime right?”, “what if her owner wants her back?”

I think that’s what scared me more than anything. Not the jail, because surely they’d throw Beth in jail, not us, I mean we were just recipients of stolen goods, not the stealers, so what, probation? Community service? I could live with that. What I couldn’t live with though was giving her back. It would be a devastating loss at this point added to an already tattered and barely surviving soul.

Because in truth, the past week had been a mix of healing vibes and guilt filled grief. Each night I went to sleep in the master and T in the guest room. That way neither Stella or Rooney were alone. I spent the first week falling asleep with my hand in Stu’s spot and Stella curled up on my chest, tucked under my chin. I didn’t sleep much. I’m a side sleeper and she was too damn cute to move. It was like she knew what was broken inside of me and she laid there, on my heart, not for her comfort, but for mine. 

When the vet finally saw her, it was Dr. Plott again, he confirmed what we’d already suspected: Stella was in perfect health.
No fleas. No mites. Some worms.
Clear eyes. Good weight.
Friendly enough, considering.

She also wasn’t microchipped (she is now).

Thank God for small favors.
At least there was no proof of our crime.

I might have panicked for a moment when Dr. Plott asked, “where did you get her? You don’t see many Siamese strays.” But I managed to stammer out some “oh you know, a friend found her wandering about” response.

I brought her home, relieved, triumphant, and yes, still guilty and broken. 

Yet, every night, I would crawl into bed with this stranger, this new kitten, and that was essential.

Not because I knew her.
Not because she’d earned it.
But because something had to fill the hollow.
Because the silence was too loud.
Because she curled into the space where Stuart used to sleep and didn’t flinch when I cried.

She was soft, and small, and steady.
And even if she wasn’t him, she was here.
And that was something.

This became my routine for about nine months. We were still in the pandemic and I was still working from home. She slept with me at night, sat on my shoulder while I worked or chewed on my papers. She snuggled up with me on the couch when she wasn’t sitting on Rooney or tormenting her as we made and ate dinner and let the day wind down.

I started to heal. I cried less and less. Sometimes I actually put on Stu’s Jams or scrolled through my pictures because I was afraid I was losing him, I was afraid I was letting go, and despite what grace she had given me, I wasn’t ready for her to take his place. 

In the end, Stella made that decision for me. I went back to work and T started working from home. She went from snuggling with me to lounging on him during our evenings, and sleeping exclusively with him. She pulled away first. It was like she knew she had done her job, her services were rendered, and she didn’t owe me anything else. Now she was free to make her own decisions and play by her own rules. To this day she loves him more. I’m ok with that, even though I complain about it often and openly. She sasses me when I pick her up, I swear her meow sounds like “noooooo”. But every so often, she still comes into the bedroom, crawls up on my chest and lays on the heart she once helped me heal. 

The Bridge Between Them and Tomorrow

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ 1 Comment

My parents are my unsung heroes.
They are 77 and 78 years old, and today they laced up their sneakers, grabbed their signs, and marched for justice and freedom—not for themselves, but for the future.

They spent their Saturday standing in the sun—
my dad holding a sign that said Hands off my grandkids’ future,
my mum in a t-shirt about how practical jokes become elected officials.

They marched for freedom.
For justice.
For a tomorrow they might not live to see, but refuse to give up on.

I don’t have children of my own.
I have a niece, a nephew, and a chorus of cousin-kids who orbit close enough to feel like gravity.
They weren’t born to me, but they belong with me.
I’ve cheered them on, watched them grow, held their tiny hands and big feelings.

And I have the thousand students who’ve passed through my classroom and heart across 24 years of teaching.

Family isn’t always about lineage.
Sometimes, it’s about proximity and heart.

These ARE my kids.

And my parents marched for them.

I am who I am because of who my parents were to me when I was growing up.
They weren’t perfect.
They weren’t my best friends.
They usually said no.
They were something more.

They gave me a framework for courage.
They taught me to pay attention—to ask questions, challenge injustice, and stand my ground even when my knees trembled.
They showed me that kindness isn’t weakness—it’s a decision you make over and over again.
That your voice matters, even when it shakes.

Even when it’s silenced.

That ordinary people can do extraordinary things—quietly, consistently, and with stubborn hope.

And I have tried to build something from it.
Something others can walk across.

And today—decades later—they’re still out there showing up.
For my kids.
For your kids.
For our world—the one they still believe in, still carry hope for.

That’s legacy.
That’s love in motion.
That’s the kind of inheritance that matters most.

Not all inheritance comes through a will.
Some of it marches beside you,
sunscreen on, homemade signs in hand,
calling out, “Hands off their future.”

That’s what I got from them.
Not money.
Not land.
But courage.
Conviction.
Movement.

And the kind of love that doesn’t sit still when the world needs it.

That’s the legacy—and the inheritance—I carry forward.
And I take every step with purpose—
to honor them,
as a promise to carry the weight when they are no longer able.

And it’s the one I hope I’m passing on, too.

We are the bridge between them and tomorrow.

A Feral Kind of Grace

~ Diary of a Kitten Addict ~ Leave a comment

A Feral Kind of Grace
 An Introduction

I was a barefoot child with skinned knees and a bike. A dreamer. I spent my days wandering wooded backyards and whispering creeks, convinced the trees could talk if I just listened hard enough. I grew up in a house where silence was both sacred and suspicious, where love was present but not always soft. I learned early how to be useful. How to read a room. How to disappear—and still be watching. I longed to ride horses on the sand and hear the stories the stars were waiting to tell.
I learned to look.
I learned to listen.
I learned to fight.

In my teens, I wanted to be everything at once—pretty, smart, daring, good.
I failed at most of it. Spectacularly and often.
I fell in love too fast, burned too hot, gave too much, and had my heart broken twice into so many pieces I never thought I’d be whole again.

I wrote poems in the margins of my math homework and still day dreamed about horses and far away places. A testament to my math ability now. I carried secrets in my soul that I would whisper to the stars at night as an offering. I wore armor made of sarcasm and kindness, hoping no one would see how much I wanted to be seen and accepted.
I played sports, earned mostly As, and frustrated my teachers with my questions and inability to sit still. I stopped listening. I stopped looking. But I didn’t stop fighting.

I went to college at 17—young, free, and determined to be someone else. I rewrote my name and my story numerous times in the span of 5 years. Each fractured being still clinging somewhere inside me today. I had moments of great success… and moments we still don’t talk about when the family gets together. I don’t live with my regrets, but I have them. I came out mostly unscathed and mostly whole, and wholly scared of life in the real world.

Early adulthood didn’t make anything clearer or easier—it just raised the stakes.
I was more momentum than foresight. I got engaged, broke that off. I married too soon and I stayed too long. I made lifelong friends, and lost touch with the brokenness inside me. I gathered names and scars and learned how to leave.
I learned I was strong enough to be alone.
I went back to school, accumulated degrees and the debt that came with them.
But I also learned how to stay.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I found my person.
Not the one I expected—but the one who made space for every version of me I’d been carrying.
The one who didn’t flinch when I unfolded. He wasn’t the person I wrote, he was the person I re-read. And I started listening again. I started seeing instead of just looking. I didn’t stop fighting.
But I did learn to let go.
I’ve learned to apologize. To move forward.
To move on.

And now?
At 47, I’ve made my home somewhere between squirrel whisperer, crazy cat lady, reluctant domestic goddess, and freelance adventurer.
I try to be a good neighbor—I’ll bring in your mail, water your plants, or loan you a cup of sugar.
But I also leave snacks out for the raccoons and possums. T calls it “yard garbage”. I refuse to rake leaves—for the bees, sure. But also because raking feels like erasing. And my weekends are not meant for labor. I have a menagerie in my yard and my own squirrel army. They have names. They know me, and I know them. One year, I had to apologize for the corn that started growing in random places around the neighborhood. I’ve since switched to peanuts.
They haven’t sprouted—but not for lack of enthusiastic burial.

I like things a little wild.
I thrive in the casual chaos I’ve perfected.
My garden is unkempt and honest but always full of mint.
My house is full of books, mismatched mugs, lonely socks, and stories I haven’t told yet.
I pick up a rock from every place I visit—and I can name them all if you ask.
I’m stitched together with equal parts wit, mayhem, grief, and grace.
I’ve softened with time.
But I still bite when cornered.

I write because I have to. There’s something ancient and restless in me that insists on being translated and heard.
I edit because I want to. Because I believe words can be shaped like prayers or knives—depending on what’s needed.
I never believe the work is done.

My writing lives at the intersection of memory and invention.
It is rooted in truth—even when the story is fiction.
Especially then.

I have an alter ego named Echo.
She reminds me to write when I forget.
She holds up a mirror when I’m trying to disappear.
Most days, she just reminds me to feed the squirrels.

This is where the stories begin.