Fostering Daifuku Taught Me to Wait

When the rescue group asked if I could foster a cat for two weeks, I said yes before thinking it through. Daifuku arrived in a cardboard box that smelled of other cats and wet newspaper. She was eight years old, a domestic shorthair with a white chest and a grey patch on one ear, and she spent her first three days under the bed in my spare room. I am not a patient person by nature. I wanted her to come out and sit on my lap the way the photos on the rescue page suggested. Instead I learned to sit on the floor near the bed, read on my phone, and let her decide when she was ready. On the fourth evening she walked out, sniffed my hand once, and went straight back under the bed. It felt like a small win. Hat Yai is hot and humid most of the year, so I kept the air conditioner on and the curtains half closed in the afternoons. Daifuku liked the cool tiles by the balcony door more than anything I bought for her. I think about how many animals in this city wait in shelters for someone to sit quietly long enough for them to trust. She is adopted now by a teacher from the next street, and I still get a message with a photo most weeks. I did not expect fostering to change me as much as it did. I am slower to speak now, and I notice when someone else is still scared.