Nonfiction / Kristin Schaaf 

 

:: Rescue Cats ::

       She bur­rows her­self, unas­sum­ing, unaware. Coil­ing her body like a spi­ral. Her chin points toward the ceil­ing as though revers­ing a prayer heav­en­ward as her eyes close. Her weight is a com­fort, a heavy blan­ket of fur, absorb­ing the weight of my feel­ings and mois­ture of my tears. It’s as though she knows my deep­est thoughts and guides me through releas­ing them, like a tele­path­ic ther­a­pist. Except I don’t have to awk­ward­ly leave after my time is up. 

       Her purring isn’t as easy to come by, though she comes to me to find her com­fort and gives it away just as read­i­ly. Her pres­ence is calm­ing, pulling me into the present when my mind runs around. Which is more often than not. She is every­thing I didn’t know I need­ed. 

*** 

       I was nev­er a cat per­son. In fact, I kind of hat­ed them. I grew up with a dog, so nat­u­ral­ly, I was a dog per­son, wired to dis­like cats from a young age. 

       My only expe­ri­ence with a cat was in sev­enth grade. My friend Amy had a beady-eyed, yel­low-orange cat that would hiss from the back of his throat if I gave him a side­ways glance. I’m pret­ty sure he knew I didn’t like him, and his vengeance was a mis­sion from the day we met. He would lurk in cor­ners, jump­ing out when you’d least expect. His tail stood on end, fat like a flame. I don’t remem­ber his name, but I’ll call him Lucifer since he act­ed like he came from hell. 

       One night when I spent the night at my friend’s house, Lucifer wad­dled his fat, fur­ry self on top of me as I was wak­ing up on the couch pull­out bed, the feline bur­row­ing itself under lay­ers of blan­kets and claw­ing into me with gus­to. I screeched and heaved Lucifer across the room.   

       “What are you doing?!” Amy cried, wak­ing up next to me as Lucifer soared through the air and land­ed on his feet sev­er­al yards away. Her eyes widened in hor­ror as she pushed her red­dish-brown hair off her freck­led cheeks. 

       “He crawled in the bed and scratched me all over.” I turned beet red and tried to explain myself. 

       Need­less to say, I was not invit­ed for anoth­er sleep­over. 

       In an iron­ic turn of events, I am now the own­er of two cats. The process of intro­duc­ing cats is not unlike what I imag­ine cre­at­ing peace agree­ments between ene­my ter­ri­to­ry looks like. Or per­haps blend­ing two fam­i­lies under the same roof. 

*** 

       Dave hat­ed cats. There was no doubt how much he dis­liked them. He didn’t pre­tend to like them, and he was vocal about his dis­plea­sure and being aller­gic to them. But when we went any­where some­one had cats, he had a hard time say­ing any­thing about it. He felt as though he was an incon­ve­nience despite his severe aller­gy. 

       The night we showed up at Christie’s house, Dave’s eyes imme­di­ate­ly began to water. 

       “Do you have a cat?” he asked, rub­bing his nose and squeez­ing his eyes shut to avoid sneez­ing. 

       “Oh, are you aller­gic?” she asked. “I can put her upstairs where she won’t both­er you.” 

       Christie shuf­fled down the hall­way to grab the small gray cat, whose demeanor seemed slight­ly more pleas­ant than the orange one I’d encoun­tered over a decade ago. I shud­dered at the thought. Christie dis­ap­peared for a few moments with the cat. 

       “Are you OK?” I asked, look­ing at Dave as his pale face turned the shade of a toma­to, creep­ing from the col­lar of his shirt all the way to his dark brown scalp. 

       “Yeah,” he croaked, though it sound­ed like his throat was clos­ing in on itself. I real­ized Christie’s house must have been cov­ered in cat hair for him to react like this. I knew he was aller­gic but had no idea how bad it was. 

       “Do you feel bet­ter?” Christie walked back into the room, pulling her mousy brown hair up into a pony­tail. Christie had been a good friend of ours since col­lege. 

       Dave nod­ded, though I knew our game night would be very long or very short depend­ing on how this sit­u­a­tion would go. We were dis­tract­ed once game night began, but I could tell Dave was still mis­er­able. I kept ask­ing if he want­ed to leave. 

       “I’m FINE.” 

       I sighed, know­ing I wouldn’t get any­where. 

       A cou­ple hours lat­er we went home, and Dave was a sneezy, snot­ty mess. 

       “Do we have any aller­gy med­i­cine?” he asked as we walked in the door, as though I would know the answer. I had zero aller­gies to any­thing so how would I know? 

       I looked in cup­boards and draw­ers but came up emp­ty. “We don’t have any I can find,” I replied, hand­ing him a box of tis­sues I’d uncov­ered. 

       “I guess I’ll go to the store now then.” He walked back toward the garage, but I heard him mut­ter under his breath, “Stu­pid cats. Why do they have to leave so much hair every­where?” 

       As much as he hat­ed cats, Dave hat­ed being an incon­ve­nience to oth­ers more, so he nev­er would have said this to any­one but him­self. As much as it drove me crazy how much he wouldn’t admit when he need­ed help, I appre­ci­at­ed more than he knew that he wasn’t a chron­ic com­plain­er. His pos­i­tive atti­tude was inspir­ing to those around him, and his sharp-wit­ted, sar­cas­tic humor always made peo­ple laugh. 

       Dave wasn’t much of an ani­mal per­son at all; the only pet he grew up with was a her­mit crab. I was OK with nev­er hav­ing a pet when we mar­ried; it gave us free­dom that as pet own­ers would be hard­er to come by. Then, when our kids came along, they were our pri­or­i­ty, and we didn’t have the need to fill that void. 

       But then every­thing changed. In late 2019, we dis­cov­ered symp­toms Dave had been expe­ri­enc­ing for six months (headaches, nau­sea and dizzi­ness) were caused by a malig­nant tumor from melanoma. We knew what we were up against, with melanoma being as aggres­sive as it was. Dave’s faith kept our fam­i­ly going. He nev­er com­plained and was always full of peace despite every­thing he was going through. 

       Dave died from skin can­cer when our girls were six and three. My own per­son­al faith gave me courage to put one foot in front of the oth­er. I had to—for me, and for my girls. We had been through a lot in a short time, and my heart longed for a source of com­fort, a pet for all of us to love. Our neigh­bors at the time were rais­ing bun­nies and chick­ens in their back­yard, and my old­est daugh­ter was ask­ing for one (hard no). I knew I need­ed a low main­te­nance pet. (Read: not a bun­ny or a chick­en.) 

       I need­ed a cat. 

*** 

       I moved into my town­home about a year after Dave passed away, know­ing I need­ed a space that required less main­te­nance. The girls knew that we would get a cat some­time after mov­ing, and of course they inces­sant­ly asked me when. I kept putting it off, because hon­est­ly, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure how much work it would be get­ting a cat and being a pet own­er, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the respon­si­bil­i­ty. I would tell the girls that per­haps over Christ­mas break we would get one, giv­ing us time at home to adjust and be with the cat. 

       Of course, on a ran­dom Sat­ur­day morn­ing in Octo­ber I was scrolling through cat pic­tures on an adop­tion agency site, feel­ing a host of emo­tions from bored to lone­ly to sad and a twinge of excite­ment at the idea of bring­ing an adorable fur­ball home for us to love. 

       I hemmed and hawed, let­ting the ball of anx­i­ety in my gut sub­side as I knew I want­ed to get a cat. I couldn’t wait to tell the girls. 

       “Han­nah, Hai­ley!” I called upstairs to where they were play­ing Bar­bi­es in the play­room. 

       “What?!” Hai­ley respond­ed in her squeaky four-year-old voice that I wished would last for­ev­er. 

       “Come down here! I have some­thing to show you!” 

       “In a minute!” came my sev­en-year-old Hannah’s reply. “I’m get­ting my Bar­bie dressed. She’s naked!” 

       I heard a boat­load of gig­gles as the girls came bound­ing down the stairs to the kitchen. 

       “What is it, Mom­my?” Hai­ley asked, her long eye­lash­es fan­ning her big blue eyes. I swept her light blonde hair back behind her ear. 

       “Look,” I showed them my phone, click­ing on a pic­ture of a kit­ten I had been eye­ing. 

       “Are we get­ting that cat!?!?” Han­nah asked, her voice rais­ing an octave. Her dark blonde hair was swept up in a messy pony­tail. Sev­er­al ten­drils were falling out, fram­ing her big brown eyes that looked just like her dad’s. 

       “I don’t know. But how would you feel if we got a cat today?” 

       The girls shrieked and start­ed jump­ing up and down, hold­ing onto each oth­er and talk­ing a mil­lion miles an hour. 

       Before I knew it, we were zip­ping through lunch and head­ing out the door to the ani­mal adop­tion agency. We went to see kit­tens, but we couldn’t find one we liked or seemed like a good fit. The employ­ee at the res­cue cen­ter men­tioned a three-year-old cat at their oth­er loca­tion that was real­ly friend­ly. 

       We found our­selves dri­ving across town, feel­ing dis­ap­point­ed that we didn’t find the kit­ten we want­ed online but remained hope­ful we’d find anoth­er one to love. When we walked to the back of the Ani­mal Res­cue League to find the cats, we asked the employ­ee about the cat we were look­ing for. 

       “Right here,” she said, walk­ing us to a cage where a timid gray-and-black striped tiger cat sat in the cor­ner, eye­ing us war­i­ly. “Her name is Belle. She’s shy, but she’s very friend­ly.” 

       The employ­ee smiled at my girls. “Would you like to meet her?” 

       We took Belle out of her cage, each tak­ing turns hold­ing her. Belle would wrig­gle free from our arms but then would curl up against us. 

       “She’s lick­ing me!” Han­nah laughed, her eyes twin­kling. 

       “She’s so soft and fluffy.” Hai­ley rubbed Belle’s back, then leaned over to give her a squeeze. 

       When I held Belle in my lap and she nuz­zled against me, I knew she was the one. Her sweet, cud­dly demeanor had us hooked and we were in love. I was offi­cial­ly a cat own­er. 

*** 

       Belle soon became my clos­est con­fi­dante and com­fort when my world was qui­et. Every night after the girls went to bed, it was too qui­et. I knew I didn’t want to wal­low in my grief or anx­i­ety. My faith kept me going but it didn’t keep the ache from sit­ting in my chest. I was lone­ly, and I knew I want­ed more than a cat to keep me com­pa­ny. I missed hav­ing part­ner to share life adven­tures with. 

       Mak­ing the deci­sion to try dat­ing was not an easy one. It had been two years since Dave passed and about six months after adopt­ing Belle. Putting your­self out into the world of online dat­ing after the age of 40 is like what I imag­ine enter­ing a coun­try you have no desire to vis­it and can’t speak the lan­guage. 

       I had no idea what the hell I was doing. 

       Belle had become my con­stant fix­ture the past few months, curl­ing up on my lap as I’d stay up late at night read­ing or binge­ing a new show on Net­flix. She’d rub her head against me, look­ing for affec­tion. As soon as my fin­ger­nails hit behind her ears and down her back, Belle would flop over, expos­ing her bel­ly for more scratch­es. Her warm weight soothed me like a blan­ket; as she would crawl on me, I’d breathe her in and exhale every neg­a­tive emo­tion. Her purring was reserved for when my soul need­ed it most. 

       I nev­er knew how much I could love my cat. No mat­ter how much I hat­ed every time some­one on Hinge would balk or ghost me when dis­cov­er­ing I had a dead hus­band, Belle under­stood. 

       And when I would be mad at the uni­verse for putting me in the posi­tion of the B.S. that is online dat­ing, she would word­less­ly coil her­self on top of me, know­ing I’d need her com­fort­ing pres­ence. My tele­path­ic ther­a­pist. 

*** 

       The girls loved hav­ing Belle around; they would snug­gle with her as much as pos­si­ble. She was just as much their com­fort as she was mine. They’d squeeze Belle and car­ry her until they drove her crazy and she would hide under my bed. She was slight­ly trau­ma­tized when Han­nah decid­ed to put her in a sleep­ing bag and rode with her down the stair­case to show her a “fun time.” 

       Fol­low­ing many of their well-inten­tioned, mis­guid­ed affec­tions, Belle latched onto me as her com­fort from the chaos of my chil­dren. She loved, even craved, atten­tion from all of us. But to my girls’ dis­ap­point­ment, Belle didn’t like to be tor­tured by tiny humans whose love lan­guage was find­ing cre­ative ways to car­ry her or trav­el down stair­cas­es. 

       When we had Belle for about a year, near­ing her fourth birth­day in Sep­tem­ber, the girls and I went back to the res­cue shel­ter to look for cat toy present ideas. I should have known this wasn’t the smartest idea I’ve ever had. I hadn’t giv­en much thought to get­ting anoth­er cat, but from time to time I tossed around the idea, but it was more of a “some­day” far off notion. 

       When we arrived at the Ani­mal Res­cue League for Belle’s gift, we perused the toy mice, balls and cat trees for a few min­utes before the girls ran to the sec­tion where the ani­mals were. 

       “Mom, can we look at the cats?” Han­nah asked. She real­ly had been want­i­ng a sec­ond cat, that was her cat. 

       “Oh sure,” I replied, not think­ing much of it. I fol­lowed the girls to where the cats were, and they eager­ly start­ed stick­ing their hands inside the wire crates to touch them. 

       “Mom, this one looks just like Belle!” Hai­ley said, grin­ning. 

       I peered inside the cage and saw a tiny kit­ten curled up in the cor­ner, a small­er, spit­ting image of my cat at home. The very cat we were there buy­ing a present for. The kit­ten in the cage purred like a tiny motor as I reached in to touch her, as though she was already wait­ing for me to hold her in my arms. 

       “She’s my favorite,” a new voice from behind me said. “Her name is Roxie.”

       I turned around to see the man­ag­er of ani­mal adop­tions smil­ing at me and the three-month-old kit­ten. Her gray­ing hair was pulled back in a sleek pony­tail, wrin­kles form­ing around her eyes as she smiled, dis­play­ing many years of love for ani­mals. She wasn’t the same per­son who’d helped us a year ago, but I instant­ly liked her. 

       “Would you like to hold her?” 

       Hai­ley start­ed jump­ing up and down, bare­ly con­tain­ing her excite­ment. “Can we?!” 

       “Oh sure,” I said, my heart already form­ing a pud­dle on the floor. 

       We pulled Rox­ie out of her cage, and Han­nah want­ed to hold her first. There was a huge back and forth before Hai­ley won out since she asked first. “She’s purring!” 

       “Can I please have a turn now?” Han­nah asked, prac­ti­cal­ly yank­ing Rox­ie out of Hailey’s arms. 

       Hai­ley wrig­gled away. “One more minute!” She looked down at Rox­ie in awe as though she were a new­born baby. 

       Han­nah held her next; then it was my turn. I was a goner as soon as I held that lit­tle gray-brown ball of fur in my arms. I didn’t plan to adopt anoth­er kit­ten, but I knew she would be every­thing our lit­tle fam­i­ly need­ed. 

       Pret­ty soon, we were tak­ing Rox­ie home—not the birth­day present for Belle that we planned on, but a gift to us nonethe­less. Some­times, the unplanned things in life bless us more than we ever expect­ed. 

*** 

       Bring­ing cat num­ber two home felt like a big tran­si­tion for our girl fam­i­ly, and I had to ask a col­league about the tran­si­tion process. It turns out, you can’t just throw two cats togeth­er expect­ing them to get along—they get angry and ter­ri­to­r­i­al. Rox­ie first got famil­iar with our pow­der room while Belle had full domain of the house. I left Rox­ie in there for a cou­ple days, check­ing on her reg­u­lar­ly of course. 

       Once she became com­fort­able, I would open the door and sit in the door­way so Belle could see Rox­ie but not go near her. For the first time ever, Belle, the sweet­est cat ever, bared her teeth and hissed in ter­ri­to­r­i­al anger. Rox­ie didn’t seem fazed by Belle’s pres­ence as she bounced all over the bath­room and onto my lap, purring excit­ed­ly and try­ing to leap out of the bath­room. 

       The hiss trig­gered my body in anx­i­ety, bring­ing me back to that pull­out bed, that angry ball of orange fur on top of me. I deeply exhaled, remind­ing myself of my non-tem­pera­men­tal cats in that moment. 

       Over a series of days repeat­ing this slow intro­duc­tion, the hiss­ing stopped. The cats became inter­est­ed in each oth­er, and I was able to open the door to let Rox­ie out. Weeks lat­er, the cats start­ed sleep­ing and play­ing togeth­er, even lick­ing each oth­er at times. Grant­ed, the sweet­ness was short-lived before they would start chas­ing each oth­er around the house. This back-and-forth dis­play felt sym­bol­ic of the ups and downs of par­ent­ing my own human chil­dren. Love and ado­ra­tion one minute, chaos the next. Nev­er a dull moment. 

*** 

        ME: Hi, my name is Kristin, I’m from Iowa. I lost my hus­band in Feb­ru­ary 2020. I’ve been lurk­ing in this Face­book group for a while. I’ve tried online dat­ing and it’s a dump­ster fire and hon­est­ly, I’m over it. I’m tired of putting myself out there and no one under­stand­ing what I’m going through. I real­ly appre­ci­ate the sup­port this young wid­ow and wid­ow­ers’ group has to offer. 

       CHRIS: Wel­come to the group; I’m so sor­ry about your hus­band. Where in Iowa are you from? 

       ME: I’m in the Des Moines area.

       CHRIS: Real­ly? I spent my sum­mers there as a kid. I’m in Geor­gia and still have fam­i­ly in Iowa. 

       ME: That’s cool. Where do they live? 

       CHRIS: Would it be OK if we took this out­side of the group and I mes­sage you through Face­book mes­sen­ger? 

       ME: Sure. 

       After a brief hel­lo in mes­sen­ger, I logged out for the night. I was pack­ing for a solo trip to see my best friend, a much-need­ed long girls’ week­end. I couldn’t wait. 

       Two days lat­er, I was sit­ting in the air­port, with noth­ing but time to kill. I scrolled the young wid­ows Face­book group and was remind­ed of Chris and our short con­ver­sa­tion from a cou­ple nights ago. I struck up a hel­lo in mes­sen­ger, not real­ly expect­ing a response. Three dots appeared before a quick reply. 

       Time flew by as we mes­saged back and forth, shar­ing our sto­ries of loss with each oth­er and nav­i­gat­ing life as sin­gle par­ents. We learned each other’s hob­bies and inter­ests, and before I knew it, it was time to board the plane. 

       A con­nec­tion was made before I even got in the air. By the time I returned home a few days lat­er, we exchanged phone num­bers. And two months lat­er we met for the first time. I didn’t expect to fall for some­one 1,000 miles away, but I couldn’t deny what I was feel­ing. I just had to make the leap. I had to trust that the unplanned and unknown would be bet­ter than I expect­ed, even if I was scared. 

*** 

       “Are you ready?” Chris looked down at me, rub­bing my back gently. 

       “I think so.” I peered over the rail­ing of the stairs from the upper floor of my emp­ty town­home into the liv­ing room, replay­ing mem­o­ries of the girls slid­ing down the stairs in their sleep­ing bags. Bring­ing not one, but two cats home. Loads of Tay­lor Swift dance par­ties. Fam­i­ly snug­gles in my bed. 

       I walked from room to room, remem­ber­ing the ache I’d felt when I moved in three years ago, that feel­ing replaced with ner­vous­ness, excite­ment and antic­i­pa­tion. I twist­ed the new dia­mond on my left index fin­ger. Chris pro­posed the last time he came to vis­it, get­ting down on one knee in the mid­dle of a minia­ture golf course. Our rela­tion­ship is a mix of humor and seri­ous­ness, embrac­ing the hard and the joy that is this sea­son of life. We find fun in the mun­dane every­day moments—Chris makes gro­cery shop­ping a hilar­i­ous excur­sion as he takes my kids for rides up and down the aisles. Chris is every­thing my heart needs in anoth­er per­son. 

       “You are the best thing that’s hap­pened to me in a long time,” he’d said when he pro­posed. “You make me and my boys so hap­py. And I pray I can be a great father fig­ure for your girls; they have stolen my heart.” 

       Chris made my heart melt with his words. He does every sin­gle day. Our com­mu­ni­ca­tion was the crux of our long-dis­tance rela­tion­ship; I am grate­ful for the ways he sup­port­ed me dur­ing the hard­est sea­son of my life. 

       “I love you,” I whis­pered, lean­ing up on my tip­toes to give him a peck on the cheek, his beard tick­ling my lips. 

       “Mom­my, can I take Rox­ie?” Hai­ley cried from behind me, mak­ing a bee­line down the stairs. 

       The cats were in their car­ri­ers, ready to be loaded up. Hai­ley took Rox­ie while Han­nah grabbed Belle, who was mew­ing inces­sant­ly inside her car­ri­er. They were both med­icat­ed for the long road trip to Geor­gia. The movers left not long ago with all my fur­ni­ture. 

       I climbed into the pas­sen­ger seat of the Jeep, turn­ing around to see the girls buck­le them­selves in, Rox­ie placed between the two of them. Chris loaded Belle in the back, between suit­cas­es, and I could hear her cries from the front. Luck­i­ly, she qui­et­ed down short­ly after we ven­tured on our long jour­ney. Six hours to St. Louis the first day; ten hours to Geor­gia the next. A house full of girls mov­ing into a house full of boys. We were as ready as we were going to be. 

       Chris opened his door and sat next to me for a moment as we took it all in. After more than a year of fly­ing back and forth, we were mak­ing our final trip togeth­er. 

       We pulled out of the dri­ve­way and said good­bye to Iowa, but we knew we would be back. 

*** 

       When you’ve only par­ent­ed girls, mov­ing in with teenage boys feels like you’ve entered a whole new world, kind of like learn­ing how to par­ent a new pet. You try to get all the right tools in your arse­nal, but there’s noth­ing you real­ly can do to pre­pare. 

       You learn by expe­ri­ence: learn­ing what aggra­vates us or makes one anoth­er hap­py, or nav­i­gat­ing meal­times where every­one is try­ing to get a word in edge­wise or no one wants to speak at all. There have been melt­downs by every­one in the house since we’ve moved in—adults includ­ed. None of us is immune to nav­i­gat­ing major changes with­out dif­fi­cul­ty, but we learn to adapt and humbly real­ize where we may need to shift expec­ta­tions. Even if it means giv­ing up the liv­ing room remote or find­ing some­thing we can all agree on to do togeth­er. 

       Intro­duc­ing our­selves to each oth­er has not been an easy process, but we have had moments where we all find joy togeth­er. Where we choose to pray and find peace. Where we find hope and love despite every­thing we’ve been through up to this point. I find myself sit­ting in the door­way, ready to intro­duce two cats to each oth­er, but this time it’s two fam­i­lies. Two sto­ries. Two ver­sions of myself. 

       The old me is like Belle: She has prop­er domain of the house and is learn­ing to let go of a life that no longer exists. The new me is con­fined like Rox­ie, excit­ed and anx­ious to leap when I am ready to let my guard down and ful­ly open the door. 

       All six of us are a bit like my cats, hold­ing onto a ver­sion of life that we know is no longer meant for us, slow­ly learn­ing to come togeth­er. I know it will take a while for the walls to come down, for us to ful­ly embrace life togeth­er, and that’s OK. 

       The beau­ti­ful thing I am real­iz­ing is that each room in my house is part of a whole. But I am not meant to con­fine myself to a sin­gle room. I can bring the old and new togeth­er and make some­thing from it, a tapes­try woven togeth­er. 

       Chris is aller­gic to cats. Mild­ly aller­gic, but aller­gic enough to war­rant reg­u­lar dos­es of aller­gy meds. But he doesn’t hate them; in fact, I am pret­ty sure he not-so-secret­ly loves my cats. Belle some­times sleeps on his lap, and Chris seeks out Rox­ie for snug­gles and affec­tion. Both of his boys like my cats, too. 

       The longer we nav­i­gate this life togeth­er as a blend­ed house­hold, we real­ize that we are not all that dif­fer­ent. We rec­og­nize our need for affec­tion and under­stand­ing. For kind­ness and grace. To be seen and loved, just like my cats. 

*** 

       “Are you ready?” Chris asks me, look­ing into my eyes with admi­ra­tion and love. His trimmed beard tick­les me soft­ly as he kiss­es my cheek. 

       “Absolute­ly,” I say, breath­ing out every nerve that led up to this moment. I touch his suit and lean my fore­head against his, feel­ing his heart­beat against my hand. 

       He looks more hand­some than I’ve ever seen him; his cus­tom-fit­ted tux accen­tu­at­ing his strong arms and shoul­ders; the blue tie mak­ing his eyes match the col­or of the sky. His red­dish-brown hair looks per­fect despite the rain that end­ed just moments ago. The sun sparkles the rain­drops like dia­monds on the leaves as we take a moment to our­selves before our water­fall wed­ding. 

       “You look beau­ti­ful,” he says, as the pho­tog­ra­ph­er snaps pho­tos of our first look togeth­er. We’re less than 20 min­utes away from say­ing “I do,” and my heart is leap­ing out of my chest in antic­i­pa­tion. 

       I can’t stop smil­ing. We stand there sev­er­al moments, let­ting the peace of each other’s pres­ence calm any nerves. 

       “It’s time,” the pho­tog­ra­ph­er says. 

        Yep, it’s time. And I’m ready. 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

This essay was a labor of love, craft­ed dur­ing my MFA pro­gram at Lin­den­wood Uni­ver­si­ty. Writ­ing around my expe­ri­ences of grief and growth has been espe­cial­ly heal­ing over the years, and I find using my voice to share just a shred of hope is what helps me find courage even on the hard­est of days.

The beau­ti­ful thing about writ­ing a weaved essay such as “Res­cue Cats”is find­ing a con­nec­tion to myself, a sense of peace and com­fort. And in doing so I find myself want­i­ng to encour­age and inspire oth­ers in the same way. As I write around grief and heal­ing and find­ing my way through the chaos, I dis­cov­er a lit­tle more about myself through the process.

Kristin Schaaf is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing her MFA in cre­ative writ­ing at Lin­den­wood Uni­ver­si­ty. While she has pub­lished a range of online con­tent, she is proud and hon­ored to have The Account pub­lish her first lit­er­ary jour­nal pub­li­ca­tion. Her writ­ing ranges from lyri­cal prose to cre­ative non­fic­tion to poet­ry, and she is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a mem­oir. By day, and by night, she hones her craft and wran­gles her new­ly blend­ed step­fam­i­ly, while still fig­ur­ing out what she wants to be when she grows up.