When a Kitten is not Just a Kitten

How finding a cat in the forest made me ready to grow up.

The kitten was waiting for me on a rural county road in the true middle of nowhere. 

It was February 14, and my friend Katie and I, disillusioned by Valentine’s Day in the way that you only can be as single women in your 20s, decided to do something out of the norm. Gifted free lift tickets for a ski hill on Minnesota’s Iron Range about three hours away from where we lived and worked, we took off early for a day on the slopes. 

Katie likes downhill skiing; I do not. I prefer to have at least the illusion of control over my body and how quickly it plummets through the atmosphere. But I was game for trying it after avoiding it since high school, and I needed a day of fun. It had been a hard winter weathering a bad breakup followed by the quick spark and burnout of a “situationship” that I had not been at all ready for.

It was warm for February–above freezing–and we cruised happily along the sloppy forest roads. In the distance, I noticed a black object in the road ahead in the middle of the other lane. I thought it was a chunk of ice, which gathers in vehicle wheel wells and breaks off when the friction becomes too much. As we got closer, it became clear it wasn’t ice, but it wasn’t yet clear what it was. Roadkill? No, we realized together as we passed. A kitten, and it was alive. 

Without thinking, I whipped my car around on the empty road and pulled over at the shoulder by the little cat. It was huddled in a ball near the centerline, looking miserable. When we got out to approach it, it skittered under my car and huddled up by the wheel, right out of reach. Katie watched for unlikely traffic and I knelt down on the road and scooped it up, wearing a large glove out of fear of being bitten. I had very little experience with cats and despite their small size, their sharpness and sentience scared me.  

Once in the car, the cat pooped both on my lap and in a bag of expensive dried mango from the co-op. After relieving itself, it came alive. The little thing was tiny, bony, and matted, but under all of that it was clearly a stunner. It had a brilliant black mane, small white spot on its chest, and a set of impressive pipes. It didn’t appear scared–the tone of its crying was was more “What the hell took you so long?” 

We immediately referred to the kitten as “she.” After all, we were boycotting Valentine’s Day: no boys allowed. She scrambled all over us, saying “MOW” insistently until eventually settling down when we produced whatever food we had in the car—turkey from Katie’s sandwich, the expensive mango she’d claimed—so we could try to figure out what to do.

We drove around the area, looking for where she could’ve come from. We were on a two lane forest service road in the true middle of nowhere. Any driveways nearby were unplowed and covered with feet of snow, probably cabins closed for the winter. We turned onto the closest dirt road about a mile from where we found her, looking for a farm because the little thing smelled like hay. But it only led into some sort of national forest reservoir, so we turned back onto the highway toward the ski hill. Apparently, the kitten was now with us.

The first road sign we saw was a milage estimate that showed distance to upcoming towns, including Aurora, Minnesota. We decided then to name her Aurora Borealis, and began to scheme about bringing her home with us and sharing responsibility for her, making her “our” cat.

By the time we got to Giant’s Ridge ski hill an hour later, the cat had settled in comfortably and Katie had realized she wasn’t ready for the responsibility of a kitten after all. We bickered about what to do next—Katie wanted to ski, I wanted to figure out what to do with the cat. We had driven all that way, and Katie’s mom, a long time cat owner, told us the cat would be fine for a bit in the back of my car on this unseasonably warm day, as long as we gave it water and a little snack. 

I followed Katie into the gear rentals, got fitted with skis and boots, and skied the easiest hill twice, snow plowing so hard that my legs shook. I wanted to proceed with as little speed as possible. At one point while I was inching down a steep incline, children on snowboards zipping by me, I decided to call it quits. I wasn’t having much fun and I couldn’t stop thinking about that kitten.

We decided Katie would keep skiing and I would return to my car with the intention of deciding what to do with the cat. Aurora was snoozing contentedly in the back of the car when I scooped her onto my lap. I looked up the nearest humane society–30 minutes away in Virginia, MN–and aimed in that direction. First I recorded a video for a later Instagram story, about how we’d found “this angel in the middle of the rooooooad-AGH!”, interrupted by the pricks of her claws in my skin as she tried to crawl up the front of me to be closer to my face. “I don’t think I can take care of her right now, so … ” I said to the camera.

As I began the drive to the Humane Society, the kitten curled in a ball in my lap and purred before she fell asleep. The sun warmed us both. I turned on the SZA album that had been getting me through the aftermath of the breakups that winter.

I journeyed through all the possibilities on that drive–what the kitten meant, what it would mean. It was just a kitten, but more than just a kitten. I was 29 that year, and had been hung up on the idea of leaving my 20s behind. How could it be possible that 30 was six months away and I still had no idea what I was doing? I hadn’t written a book or determined a direction for my future or gotten over my self-doubt the way I hoped I would by 30.

I had no dependents, real responsibilities, or physical things tying me to one place. I liked that freedom. When I’d moved north from the Twin Cities about one year before, I’d basked in the fact that I could fit most of my important belongings in one tiny car. Being untethered was part of my identity.

A kitten—this kitten—would change all that. A kitten becomes a cat who might live for 20 years. I thought about how, if I kept this kitten, it might be with me still when I approached 50. Conceptualizing that was terrifying at a time when I had trouble seeing even six months into the future, let alone decades.

Yet it was impossible to deny that Aurora Borealis seemed destined for me. The road she had huddled in was a route I would have normally never driven. I happened to be there on the very day she had been tossed out of a car by people who didn’t want her, or tumbled out of the truck engine she’d crawled into for warmth. It’s like she’d just been waiting for me there, and against all odds, I’d arrived (according to her, a little late). I stroked her silky fur, feeling the sharp rib bones under her skin, while SZA sang That’s me, miss 20 something, all alone still/Not a thing in my name/Ain’t got nothin’, runnin’ from love/Only know fear.

In the 30 minutes it took to reach the Iron Range town of Virginia, I had almost decided to keep the cat. Maybe it had been a foregone conclusion the moment I saw her, but I needed that drive and that sun and that song to get 98% of the way there by the time I reached the ramshackle Humane Society.

Inside, I described the situation to the hearty, mulleted woman at the desk. I was seeking an escape route, counsel, and affirmation all at once. A second woman emerged as I told the tale, the opposite of her coworker, sporting a jaunty bob haircut with garish makeup. Dogs barked in the background as the story spilled out of me. I like to think of them now as angels or witches, listening kindly as they picked up on what I actually needed from them—a spell of confidence and courage. 

“Animals find us when we need them,” the bobbed one said, “and when they need us. It sounds like this was meant to be.”

And so it was decided.

They offered to examine her (confirming–incorrectly–her sex as female*), saying she was underweight beneath all that fur and appeared to have been on her own for a while. They treated her for ear mites, clipped off some of her worst mats, gave me a bag of food and dewormer, and sent us on our way.

“Welcome to cat ownership!” the mulleted one said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”

A triumphant Aurora sat in my lap as we drove to the nearest Target for the necessities. I don’t think I stopped murmuring to her, explaining everything we were doing, telling her about her future home. I snapped a selfie of the two of us in blinding winter sun, me looking pale as snow and Aurora looking cross-eyed and extra ragged with grease from the ear mite treatment covering the lush hair around her ears. She turned and clawed her way up the front of my shirt to nestle under my chin, which had quickly become her favorite spot. 

I texted Katie three words. I’m keeping Aurora. And I did.

The look of a triumphant kitten on his way to his new life.

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*Aurora was misgendered both by the Humane Society and by the veterinarian on his first visit about a week after I brought him home. I didn’t learn “she” was a “he” until 3 months later when I brought him to be spayed, and got a call halfway through the day telling me Aurora was actually being NEUTERED ($10 cheaper!) and I’d be bringing home a boy cat. For this essay, I referred to him as “she” (unless I missed it in a few spots!) to reflect the information I was working with at the time. But Aurora is indeed a boy cat, and will be referred to as “he” in the essay coming next week.

*February 14, 2024 will be the six year anniversary of finding Aurora. Next week, in my once-a-month email for paid subscribers, I’ll share another Aurora story: about when he went missing in the woods for three days, and how the desperate days and nights searching for him helped me become ready to heal from my previous relationship. All subscribers will receive a preview and opportunity to upgrade to paid for just $5 a month.

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