Narrative Essay

Memory of our Kitten Ra

I have always been an animal person. I prefer dogs but I waited to get my first pet as an adult since it is a huge responsibility. I moved to Fort Carson, Colorado following a tour to Korea. As the movers were carrying boxes into the house, a puppy came up to me. She had mud between her toes and seemed so worn out as if she had been walking for miles and miles. I noticed a white line on her black nose that looked like it might be salt. I found a Styrofoam bowl inside the kitchen and filled it up with some cold water for her. She drank for a long time and then looked up at me with her tail wagging and a happy, almost grateful expression on her face. She walked in and out of the house with the movers as if she had lived there all along. Of course this couldn’t be, because it was a brand new house that we had watched getting built. On one of her trips back outside, she spotted an enormous and most definitely large sized cricket. She pounced on it and chomped it between her jaws with a loud crunch! Because of my fear of crickets, I let her stay. After a few episodes where she came running to my rescue to kill crickets, it seemed only natural to name her Cricket.

Later in the year, a neighbor of mine bought an Australian Blue Heeler. She wasn’t home during the day, so she would tie the puppy in front of her house with a bowl of water. It wasn’t long until she began to escape and invite herself inside our home. One night after a long and busy day, I fell asleep and she stayed over for her first accidental sleep over. When I took her home, her owner admitted that it was harder than she thought to take care of the puppy. I asked if she might let me have her since she was already coming over for most of the day and was very comfortable when she slept over. She came home with me and settled right in. She had a tendency to snap at a person’s heels as they walked past her, so I named her Snapper.

One evening a co-worker invited my family to her...