February 17, 2026

𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟒𝟖: 𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐃𝐚𝐲𝐬, 𝐀 𝐋𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠

It's been a week since I last wrote. Life at the shelter doesn't pause for blog posts, and somewhere in the middle of everything, I just ran out of road. But I was reminded recently that people are reading this, and more importantly, I was reminded why I started it in the first place. I needed somewhere to put it all down, process it, and find my peace. So here we are. Buckle up, because it's been a week.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐬

Ten intakes in seven days. Three seniors, one adult, a litter of five kittens who are absolutely ridiculous in the best possible way, and a singleton. The reasons people surrender their cats are a window into human life in all its complexity. An owner who passed away, a family relocating, one person who just said they "can't deal with him anymore," a few stray drop-offs, and one intake that was so strange I'm still turning it over in my head. Someone essentially abandoned a cat on the property in what I can only describe as one of the weirdest things I've witnessed in this job. You know the kind of moment where you stop and think ...did that really just happen? Yeah. That.

We also had seven adoptions, which is something to celebrate. One of those was a kitten whose adopter had been patiently waiting through a whole journey; an ear polyp, monitoring, making sure it wasn't coming back. That kind of patience from an adopter restores your faith in people.

And then there were the five we said goodbye to.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥𝐬

One of those goodbyes was for our almost-twenty-year-old clinic cat. He let us know he was ready, the way they do when you've been doing this long enough to understand the language. I took him outside. Let him walk around. Let the sun fall on him. Those are the passings that don't make me sad — they make me grateful. We got to celebrate a long, full life. That's a gift.

Two of the goodbyes happened last night, and I am still sitting in the wreckage of them.

We lost both of our admin cats.

One of them had been with us for four years. He came to us from the county shelter, turned in by his owner for fecal incontinence, with a request that he be euthanized. We took him instead. He was a sanctuary cat, which means we were his family; his whole world. He spent four more years being exactly himself, loved and safe. He had been declining, but he was still happy right up until he wasn't. We gave him a peaceful passing. I will feel his absence for a long time.

The other one never really caught a break. FIV positive, a difficult neuter, years of recovery from a full mouth extraction, and then what we believe was cancer slowly taking him. I moved him into admin when I could see the shift happening and he was happy there for a while. Until he wasn't. Making the call for a cat like that, a sanctuary cat who has been through so much, is one of the hardest things I do. We always try to call it before they stop being themselves. Finding that line is never easy. He had a peaceful passing too.

Both of those wonderful boys deserved every bit of peace we could give them at the end. It's going to take me a while.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐝

Not everything this week was heavy.

Our boy in the hallway, the one with the unpredictable digestive situation, has been doing better. I've been thinking a lot about his quality of life, though. A cat living in the hallway for fecal monitoring is functional, but it's not a life. We're going to try him in a room and bring him back periodically to check output. It feels like a strange game to play with his happiness, but I want him to actually live while we manage his health.

Our former property cat is settling in and has apparently made friends, which honestly surprised me. He was always a bit of a troublemaker out on the property except, I remember now, he used to play with the FeLV kids through the catio fence. Maybe he just didn't like the other property cats specifically. Cats contain multitudes.

And the shed kitty. Oh, the shed kitty. The one whose capture will be talked about here for years. That cat has completely transformed. He talks. He purrs. He head butts. He follows people around. You would never know. He won't be with us long. Someone is going to fall in love and scoop him up, and that's exactly what should happen.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈𝐭 𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬

I've been getting out into the shelter more this week because I have a lot of cats I'm monitoring and I want to see their progress with my own eyes. I try to bond with all my patients. It matters to me. And honestly, I've been pleasantly surprised.

But here's the thing about this work... the empathy is constant. For the cats who are struggling. For the volunteers who just found out their favorite cat went to heaven. For the owners who are surrendering because they feel like they have no other choice and are clearly heartbroken about it. It adds up. I've gotten good at compartmentalizing. Maybe too good. I can hold it together at work, put on the face that needs to be there, and then somewhere on the drive home, or in some completely random moment, it hits all at once. Tidal wave. No warning.

I've noticed I've gotten a little numb, and I'm watching that. It's a coping mechanism that has its place, but I don't want to lose the thing that makes me good at this job, which is that I actually feel it.

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐈'𝐦 𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞

At the end of every week like this one, I come back to the same place.

These cats have given me something nothing else has and that is a sense of purpose that I can feel in my bones. Twenty years in the military and I never felt it like this. I feel like I was built for this work, for this role, at this time. And I will do it for as long as my body holds out and my heart keeps showing up.

That's enough reason to keep writing, too.