We interrupt your regularly scheduled birthday blog posts to bring you this special post about our newest family member.

Meet Susan Pinky “Sukey” Young!

Sukey’s story with our family began last October, when Coraline found a tiny injured kitten in the woods behind our vacation cabin in Westernish-Central PA. She was lame in both of her back legs, though much worse on the right, and she almost certainly would have died had Coraline not noticed her tiny cries. We were miles from anywhere in a cabin with no cell reception, so we really had no choice but to make her a part of the family and feed her and look after her for the two days we were staying there.

It happened that the book we had brought to read aloud together that week was Pinky Pye, the story of a family that finds a homeless kitten while on vacation and ends up making her part of the family. I should have known then! We called her Pinky for the couple of days we spent with her then, though I had no intention of making her a permanent fixture in our family. We already had two cats, and we were in the market for a puppy, which the kids had begged for for YEARS. (I’ll tell you about the puppy in another post at some point. Yes, that happened, too.)

As we prepared to leave the cabin, we called several local-ish rescues and finally found one on our way home that was willing to take her. The day we dropped her off was hard and tearful. I was prepared to walk right back out with her if I didn’t get a good feeling about the place, but Mending Hearts Animal Rescue more than met my expectations. When I asked what would happen to her next, the woman began with, “Well, I’ll try to get her to the vet today ,and then she’ll come home with me tonight.” “You wouldn’t ever euthanize?” I asked, and the woman said “Oh, God, no!”, and I knew Pinky was in good hands.

The woman from the rescue texted me a few days later to let us know that they were not going to be able to save Pinky’s right leg, but we had every reason to believe she would still heal and thrive and find a wonderful home. In fact, my sister Chelsea, who used to be a vet tech, assured us that “tripods” always get snapped up quickly.

Three months later, in January, in a routine stalking of the Mending Hearts Facebook page, Bea saw her. She hadn’t been adopted. Apparently it had taken a while for her left leg to heal enough to allow the surgery on her right leg. And then she needed more healing time before she could be listed for adoption. And then suddenly there she was.

This was when the real begging began. I insisted we wait at least a few weeks to see if she did indeed get “snapped up” by someone local, but when we reached the three-week mark and she was still available, the pressure got intense. I knew I had lost the battle when Trevor said in our family group chat, “I’m not getting involved, but if you need a ride to pick her up, I’ll drive you.”

And the rest is history. On February 15th, Trevor, Bea, and Coraline trekked 5 hours (one way!) in the snow to bring home a still tiny but now three-legged kitten. We renamed her Susan to fit our Tolkien and Lewis pet name theme, but she will always be our Pinky, and indeed we still slip and call her that sometimes.

We love our sweet Sukey-girl!