I first learned that wobbly cats existed in the summer of 2017.
I had been engaged to my high school sweetheart. We’d been together for eight years when the relationship catastrophically ended two months before the wedding. The marriage I’d imagined, plus $30,000, went down the drain.
The stress was so intense that I developed a full-body tremor. It made me look like I had Parkinson’s or Tourette’s. It was wild and unnerving to feel like I couldn’t control my own body. People made fun of me, which only added to an already overwhelming experience.
About a week after going to the ER for the tremors, I saw a video of a wobbly cat on Facebook.
My heart overflowed.
“Oh my gosh,” I remember thinking. “It’s me.”
I was sold. I wanted a wobbly cat.
A wish that stayed with me
Looking back, that was the beginning of the path that eventually brought me to Corkie and Onyx.
Over the years that followed, I loved and then lost the first kitty who was my heart and soul: Meeka, whom I called Moosh.
During that time, the Universe sent me Meatloaf Sandwich. To me, he was there to protect and care for both Moosh and me—and then just me for a couple of years after Moosh passed.
Loafers. Papa Loaf. My Meatloaf Sandwich.
Through those years, the wish to adopt a wobbly cat stayed with me. I joined Facebook groups where people shared their lives with cats with cerebellar hypoplasia, or CH. Sometimes, there were cats available for adoption.
I reached out about a few, but each possibility fell through.
Until one afternoon.
Two tiny black kittens
It was late afternoon, and I had turned off all my technology. I’d even unplugged the Wi-Fi. I was settling into an extended meditation session.
During that meditation, I felt connected to Loafers. I had the sense that he wasn’t leaving too soon, but that I should begin preparing for the fact that, at some point, he would.
Maybe that was Loaf sending me a message. Maybe it was my unconscious bringing forward something I needed to acknowledge. I don’t know. I just remember how emotional that session was for me.
When I opened my eyes, Loaf was sitting nearby. I loved on him, then eventually opened Facebook.
There was a post that had been up for two minutes.
Two tiny black kittens. So wobbly. And only about two hours away from me, in Charlotte.
It felt like a gift from God and Bastet herself.
I spoke with their foster mom, who sent me lots of photos and videos. Then she gave me the most important piece of information: I could pick them up in two days.
On December 31, 2023, my mom drove me and a friend to Charlotte to meet the Weebles.
Meeting my girls
At the time, Corkie was called Kiki, and Onyx was called Gigi.
Their foster mom brought them out together in her arms.
Kiki was desperately trying to go anywhere. There was so much anxiety, fear, and panic in her little body—or at least, that was how it felt to me watching her.
My heart immediately swooned.
Watch the moment I met Corkie and Onyx.
I knew she needed a human, and I wanted to be that human.
Gigi was much calmer.
I like to tell people that Corkie is my emotional support animal, and Onyx is Corkie’s emotional support animal.
Even at that first meeting, their differences were there. Onyx seemed like the steady center that Corkie’s chaotic, lively energy could orbit around.
After we packed up the car and received warm wishes from their foster mom, we were on our way home.
A very vocal journey home
Gigi settled into her carrier and fell fast asleep.
Kiki did not.
She cried the entire way home. She tried to get away from me, presumably to find somewhere to hide, and I kept trying to soothe her and readjust her in my arms whenever she attempted to claw her way toward the back of the car.
It’s hard to put into words just how much soothing I tried to do.
Meanwhile, Gigi slept. She seemed relieved that someone else was handling Kiki. Haha.
I didn’t know it yet, but Corkie is a talker.
She talks all day, every day. In the beginning, I thought all that talking meant something was wrong. Over time, I’ve learned that a lot of it is simply part of her personality.
I swear she has more than 150 different meows.
On that first drive, though, I was still learning who she was. And somewhere between trying to comfort her and wondering what life with these two would look like, I started thinking about their names.
Finding Corkie May
Something about Kiki and Gigi didn’t quite fit.
They were young enough that I felt comfortable changing their names, but I wanted the new ones to carry a little of the originals with them.
I started looking up names and asking my mom and our friend what they thought.
I don’t remember the names we considered and didn’t choose. What I remember is saying “Corkie” out loud.
For a moment, Kiki was calm.
She looked directly into my eyes.
And I knew.
Corkie.
It still held that little “ki” sound from Kiki, but it felt like her.
My lil’ corkscrew.
Obviously, she needed a middle name too. I’m from the South, and “Corkie May” just rolled off the tongue.
Finding Onyx Grace
Onyx’s name came more easily.
She was black with a little bit of white, and she reminded me of a grounding stone. That is still how I experience her presence: steady, comforting, and grounding.
The part I couldn’t figure out was how to keep something of the “Gi” from Gigi.
Then Onyx Grace came to me.
OG.
OG baby.
The “G” in OG became my little connection to Gigi. And, honestly, Grace rolled off the tongue just as naturally as May did.
So there we were: Corkie May, Onyx Grace, and me.
On an adventure.
A seaside connection
I later learned that their original names came from Kiki’s Delivery Service, the film based on Eiko Kadono’s novel.
Kiki is a young witch who leaves home with her talking black cat, Jiji, and settles in a seaside town. I spell my girl’s original name Gigi, but that was the connection.
At the time I adopted the girls, I was only months away from moving to the coast myself.
While I don’t particularly connect with the word “witch,” I did connect with the idea of leaving for the ocean to discover deeper parts of myself.
And I would be making that journey with my own very talkative black cat, Corkie, her sister Onyx, and Papa Loaf.
It was a parallel I couldn’t have planned, and one that felt meaningful to me when I discovered it.
But first, we had to get home.
I had two newly named kittens and plenty to learn. They were the start of my new year.
And I was very curious about what Papa Loaf would think of his new girls.
