Teresa Santoski

Whenever someone moves away from the family homestead, it’s an adjustment for everyone. The person who has moved out relishes their newfound independence but misses the rest of the family, and those who remain at the family homestead are glad that it’s a little easier to get a hot shower but miss the person who moved out.

The one for whom the adjustment is the hardest, however, is the family pet. From their perspective, someone they love left the house one day and didn’t come back. They don’t understand what happened, and there’s really no way to explain it to them.

Boots, our family cat, was just beginning to accept the fact that Younger Sister had moved out when Youngest Brother announced that he had found a place of his own, too. Though I was happy that Youngest Brother would have the opportunity to live in a city he had been wanting to live in, my immediate reaction was concern for the kitty.

Boots is not the most overtly affectionate creature. Like many cats, she doesn’t want just anyone to pet her, and she doesn’t want to be pet in just any old way. She wants attention on her terms, and she has exacting standards.

For example, if you’re lying down on the couch and she wants to sit with you, she will sit on the floor and stare at you until you put a blanket over your legs. Only then will Her Royal Bootsness grace you with her presence.

But when it comes to her two favorite people – Dad and Youngest Brother – all of Boots’ standards go out the window. It doesn’t matter if Dad is working at his computer and has zero lap space. Boots will jump on the arm of his chair and do her darndest to insert herself between Dad and the edge of his desk.

Likewise, it doesn’t matter if she has spent the entire day with Youngest Brother. If he goes to take a five-minute shower, she will sit outside the closed bathroom door and cry until he opens it.

I do believe that her particular attachment to Youngest Brother and Dad has to do with the circumstances in which she joined our family. Seven and a half years ago, she wandered into our yard, a stray cat in need of a home. Youngest Brother was cutting the grass, and he immediately shut off the lawn mower and sat down to play with the kitty.

He was the first member of the family that Boots met and the one who asked if we could keep her. Dad was the one who gave the final okay on that. She seems to be aware of that, and the love she has for them is tremendous.

Boots is also very sensitive to what’s going on around her and hates any changes to her routine. When Dad has to go away on a business trip, he makes sure she’s not in the bedroom while he’s packing and sneaks his bags into the car while she’s asleep. Otherwise, she tries to pack herself in his suitcase.

You can therefore imagine Boots’ consternation when she realized that Youngest Brother’s possessions were disappearing into cardboard boxes and being stacked in the dining room. There was a lot of concerned meowing and jumping on and off of boxes. She was so distraught that she hardly knew what to do with herself.

Slowly and steadily, Boots has been adjusting to Youngest Brother’s absence. Whenever he calls on the phone and Boots hears his voice, she starts meowing and paces around the house looking for him. Mom then has to switch over to FaceTime to show her that he’s not actually here. Though she still doesn’t completely understand, it seems to appease her for a bit.

Boots has also been making an effort to spend more quality time with the people at the family homestead who are not Dad – namely, Mom and me. She loves Mom but is a bit leery of her right now because Mom took her to the vet recently and has been giving her medicine nightly to combat a UTI. I imagine she’ll start to approach Mom with more affection and less caution once the medication has run its course.

Boots has been regularly joining me on the couch when I’m watching football or “The Great British Baking Show.” She’ll even sit with me for a bit if Dad is in the room. I’d like to think she’s interested in cultivating a stronger relationship with me in anticipation of Dad’s next business trip, but it could always just be that she has a better view of the TV from the couch.

I don’t know that I’ll ever rise to the level of Dad or Youngest Brother in her estimation, but she knows I’m always available for several minutes’ worth of chin scratching, and that’s good enough for me.

Though it’s impossible to prepare your pet for a beloved family member moving out, you can take comfort in the knowledge that they are often more resilient than you expect. And it certainly doesn’t hurt if said family member can come back for the occasional visit.

Boots has rejoiced at the temporary returns of Youngest Brother and Younger Sister – after chewing them out for being away so long, of course – but she’s starting to realize that, like when they were at college, she will no longer be seeing them on a daily basis.

That means more kitty couch time for me, which I don’t mind at all. Even though it seems like she’d rather see the Bengals or the Jaguars in the Super Bowl than the Patriots.

Tete-a-tete is published monthly. Teresa Santoski can be reached at tsantoski@gmail.com or via www.teresasantoski.com.