This week I had to visit an assisted living facility so I wore my festive Halloween collar. I started working as a therapy cat from the moment a human signed in at the front desk. I wasn’t sure if she was a resident or a visitor, but an older woman immediately started stroking me. One of my friends, who no longer recognized me, was also wandering around there. She stopped to pet me and it was like she was in another world.
When I arrived at the large room, I went straight to the couch where one of my regulars was sitting. I immediately jumped up to spend some time with her. A woman who liked to high-five me was sitting in a chair next to the couch, and I spent some time with her as well. My human took some pictures of her with me.
We had a lot of people visit. Some are new to me, like the Spanish-speaking woman in a wheelchair who called me “Bonita,” while others I’ve known for a while, like the woman sitting on my couch who’s been here for months. Some people were there. There was another woman sitting on the same couch, which my human avoided at first. The woman clearly has a grumpy look on her face, and her grumpy face sometimes turns grumpy when I approach her. But this woman surprised us and reached out her arm to pet me. So my human placed me between the two women so I could spend time with them both.
The speechless woman who caressed me with her heavy hands was fast asleep on one of the couches. Unfortunately she never woke up during our visit and my human didn’t want to disturb her so she missed me. Hopefully next time she’ll be awake so I can pet her a little.
