Personal Narrative: A New Addition

A New Addition I remember a long time ago, when my dad brought home a new addition to our family. She was about six weeks old and very afraid of everything around her. She was in a new world, a place that was an awakening in her eyes. Her fur was as soft as a cotton blanket and her attention span lasted as long as a blink of an eye. I remember watching my mom walk into the living room, with her hands on her mouth as she fell to her knees. A beautiful brown and white kitten, with streaks of golden fur that traced all around her. She was perfect in my mom's eyes. She couldn’t of thanked my dad anymore than she did. Therefore, She decided to name the kitten, Kiki, after her previous cat. A couple years later, as Kiki grew up, she was
a ball of fun even though she was terrified of everyone and everything. She hid under my parents bed for most of the time and I rarely ever got to see her. We started to think that her hiding under the bed all the time and being so scared of the world was because she was lonely. We could hardly get her out to eat, but she was very sneaky when she did.
One snowy morning back in February of 2013, I was home alone while my brother was at a friends house and my parents at work, there was a knock on the door.
I looked through the window to see a woman standing at the front door with a purse in one hand and a child in the other. As I opened the door to talk to the woman, she explained that she was moving into the house next to us and wanted to introduce herself. I simply apologized for no one being available to greet her and told her to return at a later time. A month later as the sun warmed the streets and the beautiful skies were blue, our newly neighbor had moved in and had a beautiful grey and white cat, who had a white streak of fur down her face, walked the streets of our neighborhood. Our neighbor surely did not care much about the cat, only because it came to our house to eat some food and sleep in our garage when she forgot to bring the cat inside at night. My family and I started to become attached to this beautiful angel. At the time, she was very skinny and had not much flesh on her bones. She was maybe a year old as well. My neighbor later decided that she didn’t want the cat anymore and wanted to take it to the animal society. Before she could even finish her sentence, we objected and decided to take the cat.
“What’s her name?” My brother barged into the
conversation.
“Oh, I don’t know. I just thought Taco could be a good name for her.” My neighbor smirked as my parents both started laughing.
“Taco? You named the cat Taco? Who names their cat, Taco?” My dad thought it was absolutely ridiculous, but my mom and I thought it was pretty funny. We took in Taco, but kept her in the garage, we did not know how she would react with Kiki as well and we did not want to take any chances, especially when Taco still had claws and Kiki did not. The month of May popped around as we started to realize something was wrong with Taco. She started gaining a lot of weight, even though we did not feed her that much and she was always running around. We knew that there were a lot of neighborhood cats around but we did not think much of it. My mom’s friend who was a veterinarian, came over to look at Taco and finally concluded that she was pregnant. We were shocked, but also excited. I have never experienced anything like this and I thought it was incredible to watch this natural beauty of life happen.
We took great care of Taco and watched over her more than we could focus on our personal lives. I was more impatient than the rest of my family. It got to the point in the pregnancy where you could actually feel the babies move inside her stomach which was amazing. It was weird at first, but it was very breathtaking.
Around the first week of August, My brother and I took a vacation to Georgia with my grandparents for the week. We knew that Taco was very pregnant and knew that any moment she could pop out a litter, so the vacation was kind of stressful, but we still had my mom to rely on for updates. When we got home, we were disappointed but also relieved when we found out that Taco was still pregnant. Good news, the next day, she gave birth to a litter of five kittens. It was as if she waiting for my brother and I to get home. She had two boys and three girls, all named after names that I made for them.
They grew to about eight weeks before we had to make the heartbreaking decision of taking them to the animal society.
I was devastated because I grew very close and attached to these kittens, and the fact that I would never get to see them again felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I tried to convince my parents to let me keep at least one of the kittens. I gave them a reason for why each one was special to me. They talked and talked about it and debated and finally came to the decision of letting me keep one. I was the happiest person on Earth at that point.
I wanted to keep all of them more than anything, but there was one kitten in particular that stood out to me. She was always the first one to see me when I went outside to visit the litter. She was always my buddy and I remember always having her in my arms wherever I went. She looks identical to Taco and that was also a reason why my family said yes to keeping her. Her name is Pineapple, and she is my heart and soul.
Pineapple grew up quickly as she was the family favorite. She likes to be annoying, but will play with you for hours. My dad, not being a cat person, grew on her surprisingly quickly as they are now best buds. However, Pineapple follows me pretty much everywhere around the house. Her and Taco get along just fine and as well as with Kiki. Our family is pretty big between the three cats and the four humans that live in the household. But it’s not too
bad.