Olive

If you know me in the personal sense at all, you know my heart bleeds gushes for lost and lonely animals.  My husband knows he is always just on the cusp of living in a zoo and forgives each and every email forward from the local pound or rescue shelter I send his way.  I've transported snails in tupperware, brought turtles inside to weigh on the scale because HOLY HUGE some turtles weigh 13 lbs in my hood, and once spent a whole hour trying to catch a kitten I heard mewing in the garden section of Wal-mart. There have been emergency lizard, frog, and moth rescues.  And we have three dogs, and a cat that all knew some sort of desperation before finding a forever place at our home.  

I can't drive by a stray without my heart racing.  I look at the clock to see if wherever it is I'm headed can just wait a few more minutes.  I've followed dogs home, tempted cats with turkey from under abandoned houses and maybe picked up a puppy shamelessly chucked from a moving pickup truck.  People do these things!  

If I wasn't as skilled at rehoming these wayward souls, my family would certainly be living in aforementioned zoo.  

I took some photos of my last "project".  Her name was briefly LUCKY- since she was found by a bartender-friend in the engine of her car.  After driving two miles to a McDonalds!!!  I suppose Stowaway or Hitcher would have also been appropriate, but at my house (where she ended up since said friend has allergies) we called her OLIVE.

I mean.  I really don't get why black cats are so much harder to find homes for.  Look at that beauty!

In the end.  After only about a week in our master bath (where she hid desperately from the dogs, but loved endlessly on the children) I grew the courage to post a photo of her on Facebook and a teeny-tiny hint that she was possibly "up for adoption".

Just minutes later, a dear old friend's wife messaged me that her son was just enamored with a book about cats and especially the photos of the black ones!  And that they had been really and truly tossing around the idea of adopting a black cat because of the sweet boy's adoration.

DING DING DING

And though tears were shed (gallons possibly) by my oldest, dearest heart... sweet Olive was given a new place to roam about where no scary dogs (or cats) would have her hiding behind toilet stumps or under dressers.  I'm so thankful for friends.  And my understanding husband.  And for children I can say are truly learning to care for other people and for animals.  

My big girl knew Olive was only a visitor.  She knew from the start because I told her.  And she was happy in her heart for the friends who took her home and grateful for those days she spent taking care of her.  On the way home from the kitty delivery, she used a box of tissues but then breathed deeply and said, "now we will have room again for another lost one". 

And that's just right.