Serenity and Heyokah

I was in the process of moving into a new apartment by myself for the first time.  Lonely, hmmm, it never occurred to me.  But, of course, I did not move in by myself.  While moving boxes and furniture with my younger sister, Katherine, her cat Luna recently had kittens which were old enough to adopt to families.  I was adamant it was not a responsibility I was ready to take on.  Oh that lasted approximately 2 minutes then I saw the kittens, I was in love.

 

Over the course of several days, as I watched and interacted with them, I let names develop based on their personalities.  Serenity, the gray little girl, obviously received her name because she was low-key compared to the little boy.  He was so rambunctious and at the time I was reading about Native American Culture and came across the name “Heyokah” which means wild boy or something close to that, instant fit.  Still I got it wrong since as they grew up they switched personalities. 

 

I must admit that I was a bit obsessive with these two, they being my first children.  Yep, in my thirties, no children of my own, they were my children.  If either one of them showed any signs of distress I was at the vet’s immediately.  And once a week I made them a special dinner…….Catfish.  That’s right I bought a piece of fresh catfish every week, cooked it up for them and served it.  My thinking was that cat’s love fish and well, they are cat’s so why not catfish? 

The apartment building I moved into was managed by a couple that had many cats and the wife had recently become involved with one of the volunteer organizations for rescued and abandoned cats.  Before I knew it she asked me if I would be interested in fostering cats and kittens for the organization.  Serenity and Heyokah were still kittens, little ones, so I said I would give it a try, Opps, she enlisted my help with a Maine Coon!  That’s right this huge cat with my two little ones.  Every night when I drove home from work I prayed they were still alive. 

This set off two and a half years of fostering cats for the volunteer group.  During that time I took pictures of every single one of them, named most of them, adopted two of them and have yet to go through all my pictures to count how many I fostered.  I do know that at the peak level I had 23 cats and kittens living with me in our two bedroom apartment!  

Through various other means, which I will be writing about, I became the mother to not only 6 cats but 2 dogs, after purchasing my home.  All will be introduced here on the blog with stories about how they came into my life, some of the various health issues I learned can afflict our animal family, adventures and stories about each of them and the valuable lessons they have taught me about living and life.