Charlie was born sometime in September of 2008. That would put her birth right at the time of the Global Financial Crisis that many do not remember fondly. I am unsure of the exact date because she was originally a stray cat born in Arlington Heights, Illinois. From what I knew, she spent a month or two outside as a kitten before the shelter (The Buddy Foundation) scooped her up. They named her Lacey.

At the same time, I was living with my girlfriend around that same area. It was actually she who wanted to adopt a cat, not me. I had a cat when I was a kid so I always loved animals and especially cats. Naturally, I had no problem going with her to the shelter.

I remember the day going to the shelter vividly. It was March of 2009. We walked around and took the place in; everything was pretty nice and I felt that the animals were being well taken care of. My girlfriend already looked up the animals and wanted a kitten; Charlie was who she chose.

Charlie was shy and kept trying to hide under things when they went to find her. I thought there were so many cute cats everywhere I didn’t pay too much attention when they were trying to wrangle up Charlie. What I do recall is when they tried to put Charlie into the pet carrier we had brought she was using her back legs to stop it from happening.

Charlie was always smart and she knew how to be dramatic about everything, even back then. But, we got her in the carrier eventually and did all the paperwork with the shelter. Then it was time to take her home; Charlie was about 6 months old.

Once we got her to the apartment, the first thing we did was put her in a shelf we had in the second bedroom bathroom. We had set up a little corner for her with a blanket. At the shelter, they told us that she might be nervous about open space because some cats are when placed in new areas.

Charlie was not.

The first real interaction I had with her was when she was in the bathroom shelf and I saw she had something by her eye. I grabbed a paper towel and wiped it away. Then I finally gave her a pet, and I loved her ever since.

I used to always joke with her that she had full-grown cat ears even as a kitten. Looking back at some of these old photos, I stand by my conviction.

She Wasn’t My Cat

At the shelter, I paid for half of some of the costs since, as I mentioned, I was living with my girlfriend at the time. However, I didn’t pay for everything. Additionally, it was established that this was my girlfriend’s cat technically; it was her idea to adopt and I was perfectly fine with that. We weren’t married or anything so we didn’t have split assets or anything, and we still owned our own things.

The name Charlie came about pretty easily as well. We didn’t feel like she was a “Lacey”. After iterating through a few names we landed on Charlie because of her distinctive mustache…like Charlie Chaplin. Charlie can be a unisex name after all.

It was my ex-girlfriend that wanted to get Charlie declawed. I wasn’t for it. However since she wasn’t my pet, it wasn’t my call. That said, I was sneaky. Before my ex set up the procedure for declawing I told her that cats can have health problems if she were to get all four paws done (which was her original plan). I pride myself on not being a liar, but in this case I decided I could live with it. I also helped pay for the laser declawing because it was the safest method and Charlie would be back home in a few hours.

Thankfully, Charlie did just fine with the surgery. Her front paws were declawed but her back ones stayed in tact. She never had any bleeding and she was truly back to herself that same day. I wasn’t happy about any of it but at least she made it through OK.

Just Her and Me

Only three months after we adopted Charlie, in June 2009, my girlfriend and I broke up. This meant a decision had to be made about the cat because my ex was going back to live at home and didn’t want to take Charlie with her. She proposed giving her up to some random people she barely knew.

I said no.

I paid my ex her half of everything she had paid for Charlie up until that point and decided pretty easily that I would take care of Charlie. My ex agreed. My only regret was not breaking up with her sooner before the declawing happened but, such is the benefit of hindsight.

Despite everything, the breakup was very hard on me. I was with my ex for just under 3 years and she was my partner and best friend. I barely remember even going to work during that time. In fact, I don’t remember very much but being sad for a week or so after. Top it off with the economy going through its 3rd or 4th once-in-a-lifetime crisis and me having little job security while being underpaid, and it was a bad time.

No surprises here as to where I’m heading with all this…Charlie was there for me. It was just her and me. Every time she saw me especially sad, she somehow knew. She would come and jump up by me, not to play, but just for pets. She knew that was my favorite thing to do. And I felt better every time she did that.

I got used to living alone again pretty quickly after that. But, I wasn’t alone this time. I had Charlie.

Every day when I got home from work it became my ritual to play with her. Even when I had an especially bad day I always made time the second I walked into the door to play with her favorite toy. Minimum of 15 minutes when I got home was her time. Then dinner, then hanging out with her all evening.

And in general, we lived that way for 17 years.

A Life In-Between

Charlie was born in September of 2008 and passed away on May 4^th, 2026.

From the times we spend together I can say we had a lot of different adventures. I will be telling those stories here in her little space on the Internet.

I just wanted to point out just how unlikely it was that her and I found each other in this lifetime.

1. She wouldn’t have been adopted if I didn’t ask my ex to move in with me
2. I would never had found Charlie had I not dated my ex to being with
3. I would not have dated my ex if I had not accepted an invite to a party from a different friend
4. I wouldn’t have been invited to that party if that different friend hadn’t recently been fired from her job

I am not one to go to parties. Even back then when I was in my mid-20’s I wasn’t much on socializing. It is something I’ve reflected on often over the years that: had I stuck to my usual habits and said no to any one of those things, I never would have had such a great life with Charlie.

There’s a lot of good lessons to be taken from that realization. Charlie gave me many gifts through being in my life and I never once regretted my decision to take care of her when I broke up with my ex. Not for a single second.

I love you, Charlie, and I miss you.

I will tell everyone how sweet you were in our little space here. This was just the story of how we found each other.