Having an animal in your life is well…something. Sure, a human can give you that amount of love but an animal can give you more love than you could’ve ever imagined. And June is no exception.
The story of how I got June was interesting. Before I got her, I’ve always wanted a cat; in fact, I’ve grown up with cats. The deal with my parents have always been to get a job and then get a cat, but things kind of changed. In July of 2020, I have ended a toxic relationship with a marine and the weeks following was just about reflecting on that relationship and how bad of a man he is and how broken he left me. Before the breakup, the relationship was lonely enough when the guy only cares about his military career and not both relationship and career. Afterwards, I became more lonely and my parents realized it; especially during the time, it was in the middle of the quarantine of COVID as well as The Summer of the Riots aka BLM riots. Where I was in the middle of all that location wise, I was at least 9 blocks away from the riots downtown and living in downtown Portland, and as you can imagine, it was a scary world outside my secluded studio apartment. So, my parents kind of bent a few rules and allowed me to get a kitten. I tried searching for a kitten, met a kitten and didn’t get her, but my mom managed to meet June, aka Callie and able to get her under my name.
When I first saw a picture of her, I immediately thought of Arie, the silver Maine coon we lost 5 years prior due to a ruptured tumor. Arie was my best friend till the very end and her loss devastated me to where I probably cried for a few days to a week. So her middle name Aurora was immediate, but her first name was a challenge. There was numerous names from Freya to Celine and all the way to Athena, there were at least 20 names and I had to depend of Instagram to figure out what to name the baby. And so Juniper Aurora came to be and Juniper is quite fitting! She was born and fostered in Central Oregon along with her sisters and juniper trees are numerous in the area so the name is perfect. I picked her up on August 26, 2020 and we officially went home the next day.
Now that she is 3 1/2 years old, she has grown into such a sweet, beautiful, sassy and smart little kitty. This cat has not only grown up with me being her mama, but having Brennan be there in her life growing up, even though they are meh towards each other. Brennan is not a fan of cats and June is not a fan of other people and animals. Speaking of which, when we were living with mom and dad this spring, it seems like there’s a treaty among the animals where June inhabits the upstairs and the other animals stay downstairs or June will chase them out. With June being a pandemic baby, she is weary of people that is not me. By the time she and I moved back to the Portland area, she gets along with dad so much that he’s gotten attached and want her to stay for a bit and she’s meh okay with mom but no launching attacks towards her. June has been able to move twice, travel by car, shuttle, and plane, is leash trained to a degree and has been such a good traveling buddy as well. And she has some cute little twerks about her. My favorite is whenever she stretches, she waves and its the cutest thing ever. Her obsessions changed over the years going from ice in her fountain to trickling water from the kitchen faucet (before she was banned from the counter). But the light reflections or “ghost lights” will always be an obsession for her, not as much as before but she still likes it. And as always she does the typical kitty cat things like scratching up the couch or the side of my box spring, getting into things she’s not allowed to get into, and other things.
All in all, she has been the best little kitty ever and I couldn’t have asked for a more caring, loving and cute little monkey ever. I love her just as much as I love Brennan (if not more) and I’ll continue to love her for the rest of my life and very grateful that she’s willing to be there when things get rough.
The NEW Life 