I first became acquainted with Waffles through work. When it came about that she needed a home I jumped at the chance because she was such a sweet, good-natured cat and our house had felt too empty without a cat for almost a year. With my dad out of town at the time, I first worked the guilt-trip angle pretty hard on my mom: if she said yes there was no way my dad was going to say no. Waffles deserved a nice home to live out her senior years (she was 11 years-old at the time) and why shouldn't it be our home? My mom agreed to meet her, and I knew we were pretty much golden from there!

So the day came, I packed Waffles up in a carrier and.... she yowled the entire car-ride to our home. Uh-oh, maybe this was too rash a decision! On the (very short) drive home, I started to worry about how she would acclimate to our home, maybe we should do a slow introduction to let her get used to her new surroundings?

Turns out I was worried for nothing. Waffles walked around the house like she owned it already and was especially fascinated by the television for the first few nights. Although I had initially thought she had a somewhat refined personality, it turned out that she was an absolute marshmallow of a cat. She didn't particularly like being picked up, but she loved to cuddle and was very social and attentive to everyone she met. Through her, I started to rehabilitate a number of my friends who had somewhat scarring encounters with Pogo, so she also became a bit of an ambassador for feline-kind! 

Of course, I brought her home at a time when there was a lot of uncertainty about my future. Was I going to stick it out and keep trying for my veterinarian-dreams, or was I going to give it up and try to find another good career with decent benefits. My mom had started to talk to me about working in border security, and while it was hardly a passion-career, working for the government certainly came with a lot of perks. I told my mom that whatever happened, I was committed to Waffles being my responsibility, she didn't have to worry that I would just dump my new cat on her.

So.... that's exactly what I did when I got accepted into a veterinary program in Australia. Oops.

It didn't make sense to bring her along - we'd have to pay a lot of money to fly her over and put her through a quarantine process, and then I'd have to find pet-friendly accommodation as an overseas student. It also meant that if I decided to come home for the holidays, I would have to find someone to look after her in my absence. I don't think my mom was overly impressed, but she begrudgingly agreed to keep her. I spent the next few months preparing to leave and trying to get as much Waffles-time as I could - finally I had a cat who loved to cuddle and I was going to take advantage of it as much as possible!

While I was in Australia, I had a terrible internet plan, so if I had data to spare at the end of the month I would Skype with my mom and she'd let me see Waffles as well, noting that when she heard my voice she'd look all around to try and find me. She settled right back into cuddling with me and sleeping on or near my bed when I was home for vacation, and she'd managed to absolutely bewitch my mom with her charms in my absence, becoming a much beloved companion to her while I was away for school and my dad was off visiting family. She had developed a habit of "counter-surfing" and so was locked out of the kitchen when they were cooking, and my dad gruffly noted that she wasn't a "real cat" because she always wanted to sleep on his chest and stick close, but she had settled into their lives nicely and was certainly well-loved. My mom said that every time she came home, Waffles would follow her and meow at her until she sat down and let Waffles climb up into her lap for a good cuddle. I was always sad when preparing to leave again for Australia, and as soon as she saw me starting to pack my suitcase, she'd get sullen and push away from me trying to squeeze some more cuddles out of her before I left.

In my third year of vet school, my mom noted that Waffles had started vomiting with some regularity. Being a whole ocean away, I told my parents to take her to the veterinarian to be assessed, there was nothing I could do from where I was. She was later diagnosed with a mass in her intestines, likely due to lymphoma. My parents committed to surgery to have it removed and she bounced back nicely, having a really great quality of life for three-to-four months. When she started to deteriorate again, they offered to fly me home to say goodbye. I was distraught, but decided it wasn't worth having her continue to suffer just so I could come home, especially if there was a chance that she might pass away while I was in transit. I loved Waffles, but she had my parents and whether I was there or not didn't really matter. I couldn't bear the thought of her being in pain any longer than she had to, so my parents took her to the veterinary clinic and said goodbye. I think losing Waffles really did break my mom's heart - she always says now that Waffles was her cat, and I don't think she'll ever love a cat in quite the same way.

I didn't get very much time with Waffles, but I loved her and was so grateful to her for being an amazing companion to my mother and for being so open and free with her affections to everyone she met. I was also very grateful that my parents had really given her an amazing and loving home in her final years - it was everything she deserved.