If you had told me a year ago that kittens are vulnerable in shelters, I would’ve looked at you in disbelief. Kittens?? Aren’t those the first to be adopted? Everyone loves kittens! The truth is, the tiniest kittens under 2 pounds are not adoptable yet and require round the clock care. In some shelters, they are among the first to be euthanized.
If you asked me a year ago what it means to foster an animal, you would’ve received a blank stare. I can’t remember where I first learned about fostering kittens. To be honest, I probably saw a random kitten on my Instagram feed and followed the kitten’s ‘journey.’ The funny thing about Instagram is, the more cat related accounts you follow and like, the more suggestions you get to follow similar accounts. So I began to follow the popular foster cat accounts, like Kitten Lady and Beth Stern, while silently cheering them on.
Fast forward to a few months ago when my sister suggested we open our home to foster some kittens. I immediately was skeptical. I knew the heartbreak at the end of the foster period that I would go through. I knew I wasn’t ready to possibly bottle-feed baby kittens. And what about our resident cats? Pfff. NO. But I reluctantly went to the shelter’s foster orientation and secretly hoped they would never call us with kittens available to foster.
But my sister did eventually receive a call that three 6 week old kittens needed a home to be fostered in; a place they could learn human interaction away from the germs and solitude that shelter-life brings. The minute I saw them, my heart melted and I knew I was in trouble. We named them Ace, Apollo, and Apple. Ace was the tuxedo, Apollo the black cat, and Apple the tortie.
For one month, we fed them, cleaned up after them, played with them, and snuggled with them. And boy, were they a lot of work. When Apollo wasn’t gaining weight, my sister and I took turns to get up in the middle of the night to feed him separately. We weighed them daily and made sure that they were gaining weight. It didn’t matter how clean we got the room, minutes later it was a mess. And I didn’t even mention the worms and massive cleaning we had to do. Let’s just say in the span of one day, we bought a high tech vacuum and a steam cleaner. *Side note: to future houseguests, don’t worry, the room will be clean as a whistle for your next visit.
Ace, the tuxedo, became the biggest love bug out of them all. He would run to the door the minute I opened it, even if he was napping, purring as loud as a car engine. We brought him out a few times on his own and all he wanted to do was snuggle. If the other kittens were playing, he would be sitting at our feet or in one of our laps, relaxing. I kept trying to introduce him to my resident cat because I wanted to keep him so bad.
As they grew bigger and gained the necessary 2 pounds, arrangements were made to have them ‘fixed’ so that they could go up for adoption. The night before the surgery, I tossed and turned with worry. Not about the surgery, but about my heart when I would have to turn them over, especially for Ace. I couldn’t imagine not seeing his cute little face every day. My sister dropped them off at the shelter and I didn’t worry at all about it.
A half an hour before we were supposed to pick them, we were just getting ready to leave. My sister received a phone call from the shelter. “It’s never easy giving this type of news,” was the first thing I heard on the speakerphone. And then snippets of Ace not making it through the surgery. He didn’t wake up after being sedated. In between my sister’s sobs and my tears, I heard the vet say they tried everything they could and that it happens to 1 in 4000 surgeries.
I can’t remember the last time I felt grief like this. In the grand scheme of things, I know there are worse things happening in this world. Knowing that doesn’t dull the pain in my heart, especially because I never said goodbye. I never cuddled him one last time. I never held him in my arms on his back one last time to give him kitty massages. I take solace in the fact that he just simply fell asleep and never woke up. He didn’t suffer.
Will I ever foster kittens again? I think about all the scratch marks on my hands, arms, and legs, all of the cleaning and feeding and oh boy, the heartache of giving them up. Fostering is truly a thankless job. I’ve given up so much of my time, energy, and emotions this month, all so that they could eventually go to someone else and their forever homes.
But then I think of those kittens in the shelter that don’t get a chance at all. So my answer is YES, I will foster again…I just need to let my heart heal a little bit. My favorite foster kitten Instagram account said it best, after her foster just died: “This is the pain we risk when we love so deeply.”
Thank you for sharing your heart. Praying for God’s comfort as you grieve…
He knew what it was to be loved and so he not only died peacefully but he died with the gift of being loved and adored and so in his little the here on Earth you gave him everything
The grief is immense. Thank you for sharing this. I wouldn’t be able to write if I were you; I can’t even write about my cat although her passing was more than a year ago. Thank you for writing exactly what we, cat lovers, feel when a cat we love leaves us.