Story
It was early 2020. COVID hadn't locked everything down yet, but the news was already saying the world was shutting down. I was still going into the city for work. Normal routine, trying to live normally while the virus spread.
Then one day, near my workplace, I heard it — a small, desperate cry. A tiny, hungry, scared kitten, calling for a mother who wasn't coming back. I heard it all day long. The next day, same thing. I had to act.
When I found her, she was filthy, shivering, and terrified. She couldn't have been more than a few weeks old. I could not turn away. I took her home, called her Lady, and gave her a second chance at a better life.
Then the world closed. Work stopped. The city emptied. The days collapsed into each other — no structure, no movement, no reason to get up. I started developing bad habits and falling into a deep depression.
Days went by. I didn't notice at first. But slowly it became clear — Lady had been carrying a quiet secret. One night she started meowing at the window in an insistent and unusual way. I let her in, and by morning, she had given birth.
Five kittens. Small enough to fit in a palm, eyes still closed — five new lives had joined the world.
The five of them became my reason to get up. The house was full of life and the darkness had disappeared. They needed me. And that pulled me away from the bad place I was in.
Eventually the kittens grew up, and it was too much to care for them all, so I found safe, loving homes for most of them. Three stayed with me — Lady, Louie, and Kettem. Wherever one was, the others followed.
When it came time to move to the city, Lady stayed with my parents — she had claimed them as her own, and they her.
The day before we left, I let Kettem and Louie out for one last run in the woods they loved. A couple of hours later, only Kettem came back. I went back out searching for days. Posted signs. Called his name. Drove the streets at night — but Louie never came back.
To this day I carry that thought — if I hadn't let them out, Louie would still be with us. For the first time in his life, Kettem was alone.
It took time. But slowly, Kettem got back to himself. Jumping on the bed every morning, waking me up with a quiet meow, sitting with me for the first coffee of the day and out to the balcony — looking at the world waking up, together.
When I felt low, he would find me, climb onto my lap, and stay there purring, as if he knew I needed comfort. He hears my car when I park and runs to the door to welcome me home.
Now we live happily — me, Kettem, and Amigo, my ginger kat whom I rescued from a car engine when he was a tiny kitten.
Lady found me just before the world shut down. Kettem and I lost Louie, and we grieved, and we kept going. Amigo was saved from a bad end. All of us got a second chance — let's make sure other kats get that too.
