At this very moment in October of 14 years ago, I went for a walk. Since you are reading this just after dinner but before sunset, you’ll know that right now is the perfect time for a walk. After putting on a light jacket, I stepped outside and locked the door of my little yellow duplex with the white picket fence, and turned to not wave at the neighbors with the aluminum foil in the windows. Because I couldn’t see them. My house was mere blocks from the path that winds with the river. I sometimes refer to this path as a greenbelt, but usually I call it a scary, dead-body-finding path that borders some pretty sketchy areas. Like the ones where the houses have aluminum foil covering the windows.
After walking for a few minutes across several streets, under an overpass, and onto the greenbelt, I heard a faint noise, which I was immediately 100% sure was a tiny kitten stuck in a nearby dumpster. I was 75% wrong. I stood next to the dumpster that sat a few feet off the greenbelt and waited for the sound again. I was relieved that, though the dumpster smelled remarkably just like garbage, there was no dead-body smell.
After a few moments, the tiny mewling sound bounced off the dumpster stench. As best I could tell, the sound came from a small path that I had never walked, but was unfortunately aware led to an old, abandoned house. Though I was uncertain whether I was going to walk into a horror story or a tale of absolute heroism (either option starring me), I couldn’t let a potential kitten suffer. I followed the sound as the sun slowly set behind me turning the autumn evening into twilight. As I walked, the mewling became more infrequent and tapered off entirely as I reached the end of the path and the beginning of the overgrown walkway leading to the house’s dilapidated front porch.
Squinting in the near darkness, I strained to see any sign of life around me. The odd shadows of twilight turned tall grasses into wisps of doom, peeling house paint into omens of ill-will, and a tall, overgrown lilac bush into a grove of looming terror. It was the latter from whence I heard a small rustling. After shrieking only a little, I pulled my heart back down from my throat to nearer where it usually sits calmly in my chest. I knelt near the rustling bush and stared until my eyes focused on a tiny bundle of fur-like shadows struggling faintly against the night. I picked up a stick and poked the bundle to ensure I didn’t touch a dead thing. It mewled in what I am now certain was anger.
Though not entirely positive what I was going to encounter in the tangled knot of branches and fallen leaves at the base of the bush, I took off my jacket, shoved my hand into the depths, and heard a tiny, yet deep growl just as my hand met fur. Followed directly by teeth. Needle-sharp teeth. Through the pain, I let out a sigh of relief, as those teeth confirmed I was now holding onto a kitten. Or it was holding on to me. Either way, it was a kitten, and it was not only stuck in the bush, but it had anchored itself in the fleshy part of my hand. Not knowing how else to extricate myself and my new appendage, I wriggled my other hand into the tangle of branches, squirming kitten, and flailing claws. I located the part of the kitten that wasn’t moving, separated the branches hooking said kitten part, and set it free. From the bush, that is, I kept a firm hold on the wriggling mass and quickly wrapped it in my jacket.
The bundle growled and hissed and fought against the jacket as I walked back to the greenbelt, under the overpass, and to the nearest street light. Still holding it firmly, I opened the jacket to see a tiny, fluffy tabby kitten staring up at me with huge eyes and rapid breathing from being so fierce. His ears were little folded bumps that barely existed, and his legs were so short I stared in wonder at how he could have even gotten into that lilac bush. He couldn’t have been more than four weeks old. I instantly loved that kitten and vowed to add him to my kitten family of Clem, who I was sure would love him and teach him all the ways of domesticated cat. Then, right there under that streetlight, I named him Grover.
And she has never forgiven me for that.
That Guy's Sister 
Poor Grover. She is lucky to have found you.
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