Another Jen
Sometimes the universe has a strange sense of humor.
A few years back, I met a woman named Jen.
She had recently gone through a difficult divorce and adopted a cat from me through a rescue organization where I volunteered. We became friends quickly, but what made our friendship special wasn't our shared love of cats.
It was the conversations.
Jen listened to my big ideas.
Not the polite kind of listening where someone waits for you to finish talking.
She genuinely got excited.
When I talked about rescue, community, education, and all the possibilities I saw for the future, she could see them too. At least I thought she could.
Back then, Alleycats & Aristocats wasn't just a rescue to me. It was a dream. A dream of building something bigger than adoptions and fundraising. A place where people could connect. A place where people could belong. A place where cats could bring people together.
For a while, I thought Jen saw that vision too.
Then something happened that still feels a little magical.
One day at the Medina County Fair, a man showed up to volunteer with us.
I had never met him before.
Within minutes we were talking about cats.
Not casually.
Passionately.
This was a grown man who openly loved his cats and wasn't afraid to show it. The kind of person who felt deeply and wore his heart on his sleeve.
And almost immediately, I had a thought.
"Jen needs to meet this guy."
I couldn't explain why.
I just knew.
So I introduced them.
Today, nearly a year later, they're still together.
And honestly?
That makes me happy.
Because sometimes people are meant to find each other.
Sometimes the universe puts us exactly where we need to be so that the right people can cross paths.
I believe that happened that day.
But there is another side to the story.
Not long after they met, I started hearing from Jen less and less.
Texts became fewer.
Conversations became shorter.
Then eventually they stopped altogether.
No fight.
No argument.
No dramatic ending.
Just silence.
And if I'm being honest, that hurt.
Not because she found happiness.
I would never want to take that away from her.
It hurt because somewhere along the way I lost my friend.
The person who listened to the dreams.
The person who got excited about the possibilities.
The person who seemed to understand what I was trying to build.
For a long time I wondered if I had imagined it.
Did she really see the vision?
Did she really believe in the dream?
Or was she simply in a season of life where she needed friendship, community, and hope just as much as I did?
I don't know.
Maybe I never will.
What I do know is that some people leave a bigger mark on our lives than they realize.
And sometimes the hardest goodbyes aren't the ones that happen after an argument.
They're the ones that happen quietly.
The ones where nobody says goodbye at all.
Then, a few weeks ago, the universe did something funny.
It sent me another Jen.
Not the same person.
Not the same circumstances.
Just another unexpected conversation that reminded me of something I had forgotten.
The qualities I thought I had lost were never tied to one person.
Curiosity.
Kindness.
Authenticity.
The willingness to talk about the things that actually matter.
Maybe I wasn't grieving a person at all.
Maybe I was grieving a feeling.
The feeling of being understood.
The feeling of sitting across from someone and realizing they can see possibilities where others only see obstacles.
The feeling that maybe you're not as crazy as the world sometimes makes you feel.
Maybe that's why certain people enter our lives.
Not because they're meant to stay forever.
But because they're meant to teach us something.
To remind us of something.
To help us take the next step.
Lately I've found myself wondering if some people are sent into our lives to help build the dream.
Or maybe they're sent to help us discover what the dream really is.
I'm still figuring that part out.
Sometimes the people we meet aren’t meant to stay forever. They’re meant to teach us something.