12/24/2021
It’s time I tell you about Figaro! (and, no, I didn’t know that was the Pinocchio cat’s name at the time I named him. I thought I was being really original! 😁).
When I trapped Fig for TNR, there was ABSOLUTELY NO intention of keeping him. I already had 4! I had gotten his mother a couple weeks before, and she was Siamese and VERY tame, so she was put up for adoption instead of put back on the streets (actually it’s a ravine area, but the streets sounds more dramatic! Hehe).
When I brought Figaro into my apartment, and let him out in the bathroom, he was a terrified wild thing. He totally ‘redecorated’ my bathroom the first couple hours in his desperate search for a way out. A week later he was determined by his teeth, according to a vet, to be 6 months old.
But I visit the bathroom often every night, and I would interact with him each time. To my complete surprise, before I had him 24 hours he decided I was his new mommy! (It was obvious, when I trapped his mother, that these “kittens” were still nursing! Well, it worked to my advantage!)
The decision to keep him was both hard and easy. I have a Serious Mental Illness, Bipolar Disorder, that causes me to have deep depressions where I think about (and attempted) su***de. One of my then 4 cats is an important ESA for me, but was 14 years old at the time. But I fell HEAD-OVER-HEELS for Figaro. Still, the thought that it was a potential 20 years more that I could not let myself have su***de as an option, was daunting.
But, really, the decision was made within that first day.
I have had heart-cats before, my now-16-year-old for one. But Figaro took my heart like a bulldozer! Even writing this is hard because my chest tightens with such immense love whenever I think of him. I have been doing Pet Transport a little over a year now. The first couple trips were hard without him, even with my incredible Service Dog with me.
So now Figaro is a TRAVELER! He has come with me over 50,000 miles so far! He loves seeing new things, and we both love the closeness we get to share (along with SD Gidheon, who Fig loves, also 😀).
Thank you for letting me tell you about this incredible soul who shares my life and MY soul!
