Karma

When this move became official, my husband H basically told me that he would take care of everything if I would work on getting rid of my newly leased car, get things ready for a moving sale, and handle finding homes for the pets. That last detail was just too emotional for him, especially our sixteen year old cat Dutch, who I jokingly refer to as “our firstborn”. We picked him from many at the Huntsville Humane Society the day after Thanksgiving in 1991. He was only six weeks old. The next year when H got sent back to Germany and I was living alone in Alabama with Dutch, I got eight week old Phoebe, our perpetual kitten to keep him company. H was very afraid if we attempted to take these two old cats that they would not thrive, and we just couldn’t put them through that. It was difficult finding them a place. As usual, I can always rely on my Huntsville connection. I emailed my friend J who sent out an email to others and a good friend who we used to work with, Jeff, agreed to take them in. My friend J even volunteered to drive up and get them for Jeff since he figured I had a lot going on.

J arrived yesterday morning and we had a good visit. He is one of those people that I can talk to about anything from books and music to the existence of God. He has the most amazing stories. As we were getting ready to pack up the cats, J turned down all my offers of hospitality like taking him to breakfast or giving him gas money. He jokingly said something like, “I figure this will up my karma so I won’t have to do anything nice for anyone for about a year”. It was funny he had mentioned karma because I had been thinking that maybe his good deed was payback to me for something positive I might have done in the past. I tried to explain how much of a help this had been, but I don’t think words could truly express it. After living out West and then in the Midwest with us, our kitties are now back in their home territory, the South!