I can't save them all

One of my co-workers at the card shop sent a text to the team. She has to find a home for a 2-year-old black girl cat. In the photo she attached, the black cat is curled up with another cat, so it's easy to assume she would eventually slide nicely into this feline household.

She has bright eyes, like the cat in this stock photo. Staring up at me from my phone. Content and unaware that her owner is about to dump her God knows where. This breaks my heart in a dozen places.

But I can't take her just now. Between now and the end of the month, I'm not going to be home very much. Introducing a new cat into Connie's and Roy Hobbs' world has to be done with care, and I just don't have that capacity right now. Also, I will most certainly have a major home repair coming up soon. I can't in good conscience adopt a third cat if it could in any way compromise my ability to give any of the three the food and health care they deserve.

Then there's this: the woman who is offering this cat up is not someone I work with often and I'm not sure how I feel about her. Helping her out this way -- as I understand it, she's doing this on behalf of her elderly father -- would mean intertwining our personal lives in a way that just doesn't feel comfortable.

Oh, but those bright eyes! Shining out of her calm and unsuspecting face. She's about to lose her home and her kitty sister.* I hate it, but I can't take her.

*Being adopted by another worker in the card shop.

 

Photo by Anton Ponomarenko on Unsplash