Diary of a Rescued Ragdoll

August 25th 2019

I’m beginning to wonder if this is what my whole life will be like, inside this small room with just a blanket to lay on. Last week, I still had siblings. My mother was taken from the room the week before that, and then slowly, one by one, my siblings also went away, aside from Crumpet and Snowball who went together. Now it’s just me in this tiny room. Sometimes the smallest human visits me to play or snuggle, but they don’t stay long. My whole life I have wondered what is out there. Why can’t I go? This is boring and I have no one to play with. Guess I’ll take a nap.

August 28th 2019

I was asleep on a pair of pants when one of the humans came in, picked me up and told me someone was here for me.

The next room was much bigger and it had interesting things in it, but I didn’t have time to see it all, because we were soon stepping through another door. This was the biggest room of all. I didn’t even notice the new human standing on the other side of the door, at first. Up above was the most beautiful blue ceiling, and down below, there were giant, green, shaggy things all over the place.

The humans were talking. The one holding me told the other one that I had never left the bathroom in the whole 8 weeks of my life. Is that how long I’ve been in there? I don’t know much about time, but that seems like a lot.

Next thing I know, I’m in the arms of the new human, and we’re moving, out into the huge new world, toward a red box. The new human opens it, and suddenly we’re inside it, but I can still see out. The new human tells me it’s going to be okay, but they don’t need to, because I’m perfectly happy with this adventure.

Then the box starts moving! As I look up at the giant green things, the new human notices and tells me that those are trees. They tell me that up above us is the sky and there’s a bright light shining down, too, which I learn is the sun. It makes me squint. I climb up onto the human’s shoulder to get a better look at the world. The human puts a hand on my back and I feel safe.

We moved for a long time, past other moving boxes and, after a while, the sun moved down closer to the ground and the sky began to change color. The trees did too. They changed from green, to almost golden, like the color of my favorite blanket back in my first home, and just as warm.

When we finally stopped, we got out and I was carried to a new door. The new human knocked on it, and another one opened it. This one looked different than any human I had ever seen, with lines all over their face, grey hair, and eyes that were first curious, then surprised.

The human holding me said, “I brought you a new friend,” and the newest human, who I learned is called Mom, opened their mouth and said, “you’re kidding!” Not sure what that meant, but they reached for me with their mouth still open. I thought they were going to eat me at first, but then I felt myself wrapped up in the warmest embrace. I knew, in that moment, that this was, and is, my new home.

They brought me inside, into one room and then another, and placed me on my new favorite thing. It looks like some kind of tree, but it’s soft and has flat parts that I can sit on and posts I can climb. And there’s a ball that hangs down on a string, which I played with for a long time today, while the humans watched and talked about how much they loved me already, and how I wasn’t acting like most kittens do in brand new homes. Mom said it seemed like I’ve just been waiting to get here.

She was right.

September 5th 2019

My name is Sweet Pea now. I still love my new home and Mom is pure love. I get lots of snuggles and toys and there are so many places to jump up on. My favorite place is the upstairs window shelf, where I look down at birds in the apple tree. I learned that Mom used to live with another human and another cat, but each of them died within the year before I came here.

March 15th 2021

Something is wrong. Mom’s been acting strange and the other humans kept coming and putting things in boxes and whispering about something called dementia. Today I was put in a box, too, and now I’m in a new place. It’s much smaller, but luckily Mom’s there. I asked her why we moved, but she doesn’t know.

August 3rd 2022

Mom doesn’t move around much anymore and sometimes she looks at me like she forgot she even has a cat. Today, the other humans came and filled boxes again and moved us to an even smaller place. It’s just one room, like my first home, not a lot of places to jump up onto, but at least Mom’s still with me.

August 28th 2023

It’s nice here, aside from other humans coming in all the time to check on Mom. They bring her food and medicine. I heard a new word the other day; cancer. Mom doesn’t do a lot to take care of herself anymore, but she always takes good care of me, even if I need to remind her sometimes.

Today I realized it was exactly 4 years ago that we met, so I told Mom how much I love her and I thanked her for rescuing me. She smiled and said, “we rescued each other.”