It Happened To Me: My Mother’s Heroin Dealer Handed Me A Persian Kitten When I Was Five To Keep Me Occupied

It set me up for a lifetime of deep bonding —even obsession— with Persian Cats.

Hi Tuesday (if you had to be named after one day of the week, which would you choose? I’m mostly curious if anyone will pick Thursday),

I’m going through something last night and today that involves someone else so I won’t give the details. But it’s one of those things where priorities become crystal clear in a beautifully quiet and strangely calming way. It reminds me of how I used to feel whenever I would go visit my grandma when she was 107 or how I felt when I had to hurry to PS 234 to bring my daughter a warm enough coat for their field trip. I once got to do both of those things in one day back to back and it calmed me better than Xanax. Knowing that everything else could fall by the wayside. That only the end of the world is the end of the world. It's similar to the complete calm I have in a plane when there is turbulence and know that there is nothing I can do so therefore nothing else I need to do.

Anyway, that’s the state I’m in here. But what is happening to you is always important to me. And the influx of stories from you about that has been so amazing even since yesterday that I get to show another one today, sent in by Natascha. (Wild connection: During the editing process, Natascha showed me an adorable clip from when she was published in Sassy magazine as a teenager! It was the Sassy magazine after I left and another publisher took it over, which makes it even sweeter that I am the lucky one to get to publish her current work, this It Happened To Me, today. Finally!)

I love you all deeply.

-Jane

PS I would pick Tuesday for my name, but Saturday would be a close second.

Little me in my bedroom with Jellybean (named after Madonna's boyfriend of course), Seattle, circa 1984.

By Natascha Snellman

When my son, Indio, was 5 —before I had time to realize what I had agreed to—he got me to pinky swear to give him a kitten. Indio had already mastered negotiating. We went back and forth about when and eventually settled on his 10th birthday.

There is no need to take pity on Indio having to wait 5 years for a kitten. We already had our amazing cat, Zuzu Petals. A large white Persian with a tiny pink nose who I tracked down at a kill shelter. Apparently, he had been found in a police impound car, malnourished.

His personality was clown-like, always making us laugh. Zuzu was that cat who won “dog people” over and also left them slightly intimidated. This was his charm. Zuzu was my baby; he loved a facial, detested a brushing, and would let me give him a bubble bath on occasion.

Before Zuzu, I had Harlow. Also a Persian, also adopted. Harlow was black, but in the sun she had reddish brown highlights like a $500 balayage. She was a bit cross eyed and in the cat world her face was called a “doll face”, and her personality matched this description.

Zuzu Petals at home in L.A. 2023

Both Harlow and Zuzu were my sanctuary. When I have anxiety or feel upset, I’ve always- since as far back as I can remember- held my cats, burrowed my face into their fur and inhaled them while listening to their heartbeat.

After four years of being with Harlow, I discovered Harlow had feline coronavirus, and she involuntarily returned to the stars.

Then, last summer, a month before Indio’s 9th birthday, Zuzu died very suddenly of an enlarged heart and a blood clot in his kidneys. The morning we held him and said good bye at the vet was awful. The weeks that followed didn’t seem to lift our despair, even our dog seemed depressed, sleeping on the sofa instead of with us.

Death creates a noticeable emptiness in the spaces where the deceased previously were. The environment becomes impaired. My heart felt like a swamp of sadness and I was desperate to fill this void.

Zuzu wasn’t supposed to die. He was meant to be immortal, or at least live until he was 20. Indio asked if we could get his kitten a year earlier than planned. I tried to convince him we should adopt an adult cat (I had only ever adopted adult cats as an adult) but he reminded me of my pinky promise.

I allowed myself to lean into the Persian kitten dream. We trekked to Orange County to meet a lady named Donna, who invited us to sit on her bedroom floor and meet her kittens. The cuteness overload melted my hesitation. Still mourning Zuzu, I teared up.

This was light and darkness colliding. I felt the cool Spanish tile floors and steadied my breathing. I didn’t want to melt down in a stranger's bedroom. As I watched Indio hold the boy kitten from across the room, I saw him beam. He was being so gentle and spoke softly to the kitten.

A memory resurfaced.

I’m a 5-year-old, (circa 1982), and my mom takes me with her to Essie’s house. My mom points at a bench for me to sit in the dark hallway and tells me she will be back. Essie, her drug dealer, walks her into a bedroom and closes the door behind them.

I hear the old wooden floors creak. I look around. I can see the dust twinkling in the shards of sunlight that shine through the cracks of the closed doors.

Me in my favorite swimsuit (so wild!), Los Angeles, maybe the Tropicana Motel, circa 1982

The molding is dark, and maybe I am fiddling with my dress because I see it: White (maybe with tiny pink rose buds? Probably cotton), Laura Ashley style. I think my legs must have been bare because in this memory, I am cold.

It’s sunny outside, but dark and cool in this house. I get up and look through the key hole. My mom is sitting with her eyes closed on a wooden dining room chair. Essie has wrapped some sort of cord around her arm and gives her a shot.

I remember saying, “Mom…?” No response. A little louder. “Mommy…?”