Shadi, Yazhi and Ian Eliot LeWinter: Furry Friends Fur-Ever
“When I first met Shadi and Yazhi through Furry Friends, I knew they needed a home,” says Ian. “What I didn’t realize was how much they would teach me about patience.
“The sisters had already experienced so many changes in their young lives, moving from place to place, and when they arrived here, they didn’t know if it would be any different. Yazhi was curious from the beginning, eager to know what every object was. If I picked something up, she inspected it. If she found a toy she loved, she carried it through the house like a little crow collecting trinkets. Her ‘headquarters’ is now a cardboard box, and she drags her favorite cloth worm, little plastic treasures and whatever else catches her eye back to that box.
“Shadi was different: she watched first. For a long time, every new room, every sound, every change required courage. I learned that with her, ‘success’ sometimes meant spending two minutes in the living room. Sometimes it meant sitting for ten seconds in the open before deciding that she’d had enough. Since each of those moments mattered, I tried to be predictable.
“Every day, Shadi and Yazhi watched me work and watched me clean. Every day they saw that nothing bad happened. Slowly, the house stopped feeling like a place they had to survive and, instead, became a place where they could LIVE.
“One of my favorite memories was when I opened the sliding glass door and left only the screen closed. Yazhi promptly claimed the spot. She spent hours lying against the screen, listening to the birds, smelling the rain and watching the world. Before long, Shadi began visiting that area, too. She didn’t stay as long, but she came. That was enough.
“Then something happened I’ll never forget. One day, Yazhi climbed onto the couch beside me and stayed. She played with my hand, rested next to me and eventually fell asleep. It wasn’t because I had picked her up or encouraged her. She chose to be there: it was the moment she decided that the couch belonged to both of us.
“Watching these two sisters has taught me that every cat has their own language. Yazhi says, ‘Come play with me.’ Shadi says, ‘Watch me be brave.’ Together they’ve reminded me that trust isn’t built in a single moment. It’s built over hundreds of ordinary days, where kindness is consistent, patience never runs out and love asks for nothing in return.
“People sometimes rescue animals. I think these two kitties rescued me right back.”
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Furry Friends Fur-Ever Stories are compiled and written by Nomi Berger who is the bestselling author of seven novels, one work of non-fiction, two volumes of poetry, and hundreds of articles. She is a volunteer writer for Furry Friends in Vancouver, WA and also volunteers her writing skills to animal rescue groups in Canada and the USA.
