Karma

In my earlier post about our five furry 'children', I mentioned a cat that is no longer with us. She was such a good kitty and she had a few funny stories. Her name was Karma.

When Hunkahubby and I got married, he already had Britney, but I decided that Britney needed a buddy and that I needed a kitty to call my own. We went to the local no-kill animal shelter in search of a calico kitten. As fate would have it, there were no calicos that day - but we kept looking anyway.

When we got to a certain cage, there were two kittens inside and this one interesting-looking cat kept pushing up against the cage door wanting us to get her out. We asked the shelter worker to open the cage, and as soon as she did, this cat jumped onto my shoulder - purring so loud I could hardly hear anything else. She then looked over to Hunkahubby, jumped to his shoulder and then jumped back to mine.

Well - that was easy - we knew she was the one meant for us. She was named Karma and the name seemed to fit - so we didn't change it. After the 3 day waiting period, we were able to bring her home.

Karma was a tortoise-shell or 'torti'. We found out that shelters have a hard time adopting out these cats, because a lot of people think they are ugly. I thought she was beautiful. She was very loving and attentive - which often is NOT the case with cats.

We brought Karma home to meet Britney and Britney was NOT happy. But we figured she'd get over it eventually.

One of the things Karma did that we always laughed at was crawl up under the covers on the bed and sleep. This almost became a fatal choice for her! We came home a few days after bringing her home and couldn't find Karma anywhere. We lived in a VERY small 2-room apartment and we knew she couldn't have gotten far.

I looked at Britney and said, "What did you do with Karma?" A few minutes later, Britney got up off the bed where she was laying. Underneath where Britney had been sleeping was a lump - Karma had crawled up under the covers to sleep and Britney had decided to lay on top of her!!! I don't know if it was intentional or what - but we've always laughed about Britney trying to off Karma by smothering her.

Eventually - Karma and Britney learned to get along and were quite content to be in each other's company, especially when more kitties were introduced into the household. They learned to stick together.



Unfortunately - pets don't live forever, and sometimes they have to go before it is their time. Karma got trapped in the laundry room one day and and something heavy fell on top of her - I got home in time to pet her and she looked up at me and meowed several times. We then rushed her to the vet, but I'm sure she was gone before we got there. It was very tragic. This was the first death of a pet that the kids had to experience - but I think my husband and I were worse than the kids were.

Karma was a neat cat. She liked to sleep on our pillow at night and "knead doughballs." She made chirping noises and always talked to us. She knew that the other cats didn't like her as much, and she didn't care - she seemed happy with who she was.

I truly believe that pets are here to teach us things - so here is what I learned from Karma:

1. Be yourself - don't worry about what others think.
2. Even if you look different, you are still beautiful.
3. If you find someone to love you, hold on to them tight and love them with everything that is in you - because we never know what may happen tomorrow.

I'm sure I will have other Karma stories to post - but for tonight, I just want to remember what a great cat she was and think about her curled up under a big heavenly blanket dreaming great kitty dreams.