Lena Chebli & Godot
In March 2020, I was starting to feel nervous about Covid but continued to plan my housewarming party in my Fort Greene apartment, having recently moved to Brooklyn from Berlin, Germany. On March 19th, with my anxiety rising and lockdown on the horizon, I canceled my party and applied to foster a cat instead.
On the morning of Friday, March 27th, Julia from the Brooklyn Cat Cafe asked me if I was still interested in fostering a cat, she had a giant ginger love bug for me, a young senior of maybe seven years. A few hours later, I picked up Goldie from her trunk full of cats. As soon as I opened the carrier, Goldie went to hide behind the radiator. With the starter kit I’d received, I set up a feeding station and litter box in the living room and hoped he’d come back out.
On Saturday, the foster slack channel was full of photos and videos of cats playing, eating, and cuddling. Goldie had remained in the box he’d found where he had peed himself, had not yet had any food and seemed scared of me. The wet food I’d gotten out for him had dried up. I lured him into a bigger box and placed some dry food out for him, he finally nibbled on it when I wasn’t looking.
Before the lockdown, my life consisted of Monday-Thursday travel. Now, I hadn’t left home since I picked up the cat from Julia’s car and spent my days on video calls. I was single, I lived alone, and my family was on another continent—but, I now had this little scared creature who relied on me, even if he didn’t seem to enjoy my company all that much. At night, I sometimes rushed to the living room to make sure he was alright, suddenly anxious something had happened to the cat. In those moments, I wondered who was more of a scaredy cat: him or me.
A few weeks into fostering, Goldie had to be picked up for a full dental extraction that had been scheduled by the Brooklyn Cat Cafe. He hid back in his favorite box and I covered him with a blanket for his recovery. Fortunately, not having any teeth didn’t come with any functional impairment—after a few days of recovering, he was able to just inhale any food. I still wasn’t leaving the house and my life became paced by cat milestones: the first time he sat with me on the sofa while I watched a movie, the first time he asked for a belly rub. It took until late April for me to see Goldie play for the first time. I was impossibly proud. That same day, a woman emailed me saying she was interested in adopting Goldie and when could she stop by to pick him up? Never, I screamed internally. I was certain I’d resume my travel soon, I didn’t know how I’d take care of the cat when I was away but I couldn’t imagine giving him up—and I signed the adoption papers within a day. Goldie was renamed to Godot—I wanted to keep a similar-sounding name. Even though it had only been a week between applying and receiving Goldie, the wait had felt endless and I enjoyed the reference to Waiting for Godot, a play I had read in school.
“On the weekends, we have our routines: extra cuddles on Caturday, and Sunday spa day when I brush him, which he loves, and give him ear drops, which he hates. ”
I met Fernando online in August 2020, like many Covid couples our first date was a socially-distant walk in the park. In September, Fernando and Godot first met, and while it took Godot months to open up to me, he licked Fernando’s hands within minutes. In the Fall of 2021, the three of us moved in together in a great Cobble Hill duplex.
It’s hard to think of Godot as the same scared creature from those early days. He has truly become the king of the house—most recently, he started claiming my pillow as his, though he is often found on Fernando’s side of the bed. I didn’t hear a single sound from him for the first few weeks I had him, but now Godot is the signature alarm-clock cat, meowing at seven on the dot, requesting food and some supervised rooftop time. When he is particularly happy and playful, he trills, which produces a delightful sound. Boxes aren’t that interesting to him these days, given he thinks he is the rightful owner of the bed, sofa, the cat heating pad, all household chairs, and the dining table.
We think he is almost ten and like many senior cats, he isn’t the most energetic, though he’ll try to catch the laser or entertain himself with his mice when he’s in the mood. More than anything, he likes to cuddle and sit on our laps. His strangest passion is espresso coffee—he climbs on any table that has an espresso cup— but he’s not allowed to drink any. When we have friends over, it’s not unusual for him to jump up on their lap and request belly rubs. On the weekends, we have our routines: extra cuddles on Caturday, and Sunday spa day when I brush him, which he loves, and give him ear drops, which he hates.
Fernando and I are getting married on November 26 in the South of France (though we had our legal wedding in city hall in October)—our only regret is that we can’t bring Godot. With our first family photoshoot, we feel like we are making Godot a part of the celebration as well!
Lena is a French/German/Lebanese management consultant and lives in Cobble Hill, New York, with her husband and cat.