Story Time

At Lucky Cats Rescue, we're on a mission to celebrate the incredible bond between humans and animals, and the healing power of art and music in our lives. We believe that sharing our stories can inspire, uplift, and unite us in a community of compassion and understanding.

We want to hear your stories too!

Goal:

  • To collect and share real-life stories from real humans about the benefit pets, art, and music has had on your life.

  • To showcase how therapeutic and beneficial arts and animals are to our everyday life and health.

Holly’s Stories - Cats Part 1

If this bitch expects other people to do something, you better believe I’m gonna lead by example. Who the fuck likes to hear from people that just talk, but never do the damn thing themselves? Not me. 

So here is my first of 3 stories to start this story sharing soiree off! I'm going to present this how my mixed-media ass wants at this point. I want you to hear my authentic voice as I say the things.I’m over all communication being done with a fucking keyboard. OVER. FUCKIN. IT. If you've never gotten tattooed by me, then you can't read anything I say and know how I would say it. (If that’s the case, ride with me on this one.) We all read too much into everything. And everything being delivered in text form doesn't help matters. When you submit your stories, use whatever creative means suits you best. If typing is your jam, do that. If speaking is better for you, do that. If you communicate best with images, do that. Whatever your most authentically you way of communicating is, fucking do it!

So here is my introduction to “Sharing is Caring,” let's talk about cats! Yesssss. Because if you do know anything about me, I LOVE my cats. Put me right there with everyone that calls their pets, your children; no shame in this Cat Mom game. They are also one of the few things that when I think back as far as I can safely into my childhood, identify as family. My cat Maxie was my first brother. When the adults were being too much, Maxie was there. Big handsome dude, my first Tuxedo too. Maxie was my symbol of a big cat in a house cat body, big, strong, intimidating to those that didn’t know him, and king of whatever neighborhood we moved to. Maxie was there my whole life, he was the same age as me, and after my sister died, he was my friend, my comfort, my counselor. Without saying a fucking word. We all know that phrase, “I don’t know what I would have done without my pet.” I can say that phrase is the truest thing for so many periods in my life. Starting with Maxie, and then at 14 I had my first rescue, Babe. She ended up being pregnant even though she was the size of a kitten herself and those babies were life changing. 

Later on after I moved to North Carolina for work, and after I moved out of the back of the studio and got my first big-girl apartment, I got my first cat as an adult, Miss Kitty. She was with me through so many things in my 20’s, I will always wish I had more time with her. After I broke up with a guy that thought a sleeping kitten toy from the mall kiosk was better than giving me a real kitten (for Valentines Day) after expressing how much I wanted to get Miss Kitty a friend, I rescued Olive (named after Olivia from Law & Order SVU) who was a tiny stray kitten I found outside of my work. Those that know, know they always appear when you need them the most. I fucking loved Olive, Miss Kitty did not.. Oops! And then Cat Dad came into our life. Our beloved, Jeff.

Jeff and I crossed paths multiple times before we actually exchanged numbers. Jeff and his band mates would come by my apartment after they left the bar and then we would end up playing with Olive and the laser pointer. Jeff and Olive LOVED IT! And I loved it. The rest of the band, mehh. Jeff never had a cat before so all of this was new and amusing as fuck to both of us. Music, and partying, and partying with cats, this is what connected us instantly. I’ve never felt a connection with anyone the way I did with Jeff the first time we met. But that's another story for only certain people. We had our Cat Dad and although life be lifeing, it was different now. It is better now

Then a few months later, my tattoo mentor was murdered, and things were not better. I won't go into the details here because it's forever a lot, but a few weeks later, Jeff convinced me to leave the house, to go visit some friends just for a little bit. He didn't know it was the anniversary of my sister's death that particular day, he didn't push, he didn’t need to know everything to know how to be there. So as we got out of the car, he experienced for the first time what cats do best. Walk into your life when you need them. On this night, Lady literally walked into our lives. She walked right up to me, I picked her up and asked our friends who she was, they didn't know or had never seen her around before. So I looked over at Jeff and said she was coming home with us. He didn't say no, and that's why they both stayed. #neveragain 

Lady came home with us, she was now my second calico and second rescue to end up being pregnant. She was Jeff’s first rescue and our first fur baby together. She was a gift with other tiny gifts growing inside of her. Life was so fucked up but I had my cats and my Cat Dad. 

Without all of these being in my life on all of these occasions, I genuinely don’t know where I’d be. I know where I would want to be, but these cats and Jeff gave me purpose. They gave me love in the darkest moments, and did what most of us need, comfort and support without words. In most of these experiences, words will do and have done more damage than good. Things can't be fixed, feelings must be felt, not ignored or suppressed. Everyone's grief is different and we all need support in different ways at different times. Cats know what to do, they sit with you in your pain and feelings. That I think is the biggest gift they bring with them when they walk into our lives. They don’t run away. They don’t avoid. They embrace.

To be continued……

Jeff, Miss Kitty (in his arms), and Olive 🖤

Shawna from Massachusetts , USA

“My bengal, Minnow, was a snuggler. She was notorious for crawling under my sweatshirt and sleeping in her safe haven. And she was very shy, so this close cuddle-time was special to me. She had a small bump show-up on her front leg one day. At first, the bump was tiny, barley noticeable. And it started to grow. Quickly. We took her to the vet and determined we'd just watch it. Within a few months her growth went from a tiny bump to the size of a plum tomato. It was huge.
I remember this vividly, because it was the same time I too got diagnosed with a large growth . For me it was on one of my ovaries, the size of a grapefruit. As I had this tumor growing, Minnow did too. It was if she had a "sympathy tumor" growing along with me. I had a successful surgery with a healthy diagnosis. A month later, Minnow had her surgery, removing the 1 lb mass, and receiving a healthy diagnosis too. We recovered together, and she never left my side. She was amazing.”

“Minnow just knew.”

“We are all storytellers. We all live in a network of stories. There isn’t a stronger connection between people than storytelling.”

-Jimmy Neil Smith, Director of the International Storytelling Center

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Your story can be here!

“The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic ‘right-brain’ thinkers.”

-Daniel Pink, author

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