027: adolessons / let's talk about bruno
Arns relives our most embarrassing and poignant teenage moments with the film Dìdi (弟弟). Nins marvels at the transformative power of patience and love through cat rescue Bruno and his foster mom Grace Choi of The Happy Kitty Rescue.
referenced in this episode:
"Filmmaker Interview: Sean Wang, writer/director of DÌDI (弟弟)" by Colin McCormack for SAGIndie
~The Happy Kitty Rescue’s main website
Day 1 with Bruno
Day 8 with Bruno
Day 19 with Bruno
Day 20 with Bruno
Grace Choi's interview with cat brand Smalls
0:00 - Intro
2:53 - Arns: Dìdi (弟弟)
24:54 - Nins: cat rescue Bruno
52:24 - Outro
summary
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(00:00) hi I'm Angela Non I'm Ariana Kempis and this is brb [Music] crying hello everyone welcome back to be brb crying I am Ariana also known as Arns and I'm Angela also known as Nins and here we are again here we are fresh new batch of tear Tales tear Tales you know cute yeah is that not explicit enough we're here to talk about things that made us cry there you go beautiful how you doing oh you know I'm a little sick this sounds familiar I was just thinking like I'm pretty sure Arns has been sick this entire season I yeah it
(00:59) was like three episodes of like let me talking like this so now it's my turn of course time to pay my dues I'm be doing that a lot if it sounds sexy it is it is it's called congestion all right that's what I got that's what I got on the M yet in the thick of it always on the men you know what I mean oh my God you know what I mean oh all right love it but how about you I have a raging headache right now but I think it's getting better yeah yeah yeah always on the menend it's really not it's just very consistently yeah okay so but I'm good
(01:45) otherwise yeah yeah scintilating if you're new here welcome we're usually a little more lively a little more Cher a little more chipper but you know what we all have our days and that's okay the the most important thing is that we just keep showing up yeah I mean we're here to talk about things that made us cry so sometimes the vibe is the vibe is low the vibe is sickly the vibe is sickly so yeah so welcome welcome um thanks for being here and to all our existing crybabies welcome back love you love you I don't have anything else to say
(02:28) right now yeah shockingly usually I feel like we can't stop talking but I got nothing announcements wise I mean I have more things to say just I don't have any sure updates to give that's fine all right do we just start do we just start listen if you've been here before you get you get the gist we'll just we'll just Dive Right In okay what do you got for me what do I have for you well first I have a really thoughtful intro okay that's not it's I mean it's fine uh we are happy to be here we are so excited to be here by the way I
(03:12) swear all right well I thought it would be fitting to start with revealing some of our deepest darkest secrets from our childhood our hour okay our shared childhood yeah we were one person um our our general childhood years and that is our screen names oh would you like to go first we had plenty yeah so by the way I'm talking about screen names on AOL Instant Messenger Otherwise Known fondly to us as aim mhm um well my go-to yes was Angie blah so clever I I had that one for a pretty long time feel like most of middle
(03:55) school and high school you had that mhm yeah it was a good one it was a good one yeah Angie blah Angie blah two e's two h's yes mhm um well I started with sweet sunshine 28 and that was swt by the way uh uh and the I was a one oh hello duh just so we're clear just so we're clear and then I moved on to Yana banana uh way too many A's in there I mean I think I was like why a a a yeah yeah yeah um I do want to give a little shout out to one of our best friends Marty I'm sorry Marty uh I just I got it she had the best ones um one of them was
(04:41) easy grease hot dog MH do you remember some of her the magical Marty the magical Marty yeah yeah sorry shout out Marty you had some good ones um I love Mars too it was DDR princess Dude Love It god dude I kind of miss them cuz now everyone's like oh it's just my name you know boring boring tell me a little more about yourself love the sun it's sweet I'm just like blah you know anyway getting us back on track uh if you listener also grew up in the early 2000s and were also on this aim culture I encourage you to reflect on
(05:26) your screen name maybe even comment it on our post on Instagram our reals because today we are transporting ourselves back to that Golden Era with the film dee dee oh she has not watched it oh I don't think I've seen this all right my main source for today is an interview with Shawn Wing who is the writer and director of DD and it's by Colin mccormac for sag Indie all right General spoiler alert I'll be talking about major plot points and some scenes in detail but if you're like me and you don't want to know [ __ ] then watch the
(06:04) movie first and you can buy or rent it on a lot of different platforms but I watched it for free on Amazon Prime video sorry nins you have no choice you are going to get the spoilers just cancel this recording I'll be back in like two hours we'll postpone it all right so DD is a 2024 film written and directed by Sha Wang starring Isaac wing and Joan chent it premiered at Sundance in 2024 where it won the best Ensemble grand jury prize and the US dramatic audience award and then it was picked up by Focus Features after that so it is set in the
(06:44) summer of 2008 and it follows a Taiwanese American Boy on the cusp of adolescence in Fremont California 510 baby and it's sort of chronicling what it was like to grow up in those early days of social media again 2008 so in addition to AOL Instant Messenger you have early early YouTube you got Myspace early Facebook and the interfaces of these websites is Flawless when you're watching it so according to sha Wing the research was compiled over the seven years of writing this film so he had like a folder where he was saving like
(07:26) old pictures of you know and these designers recreated these deliberately Loi websites it's this is the words I used horrifyingly accurate um so let me get into the plot although I will say that this film isn't super plot driven so much as it's a snapshot into this 13-year-old boy's life so it's kind of like you're just stepping into his shoes for a summer it's not about what happens so much as how you feel when you're watching it so Chris wing also known as DD which means little brother it's Taiwanese American again from Fremont
(08:04) California if you've never been to Fremont the vibe is Suburban pretty ethnically diverse but still very heavily Asian and since it's the bay all these little Asian kids think they're like hella gangster they're not but again I cannot stress how accurate this movie was for anyone who grew up in the bay in the early I've never watched a film that so accurately captured my teenage Hood I actually like I had to close like I couldn't watch some I was like oh my God like I I was like I can't watch this cuz it felt like Snippets from my own life
(08:46) man yeah yeah I also do want to say that this uh multiple people were like [ ] you got to watch this like I cried so hard so it was kind of on my list for a while but like every 13-year-old in history Dei doesn't know [ ] it's the summer of 2008 and he's about to enter high school he doesn't know who he is what he likes how to talk to girls everything he does is out of sheer desperation to just be accepted like he lies about the movies that he watches oh God no I'm which I I felt so hard because like I feel like my parents didn't let me
(09:27) watch a lot of like older kid mov like rer ones growing up so like I never understood the references I would just like pretend that like it's really [ ] painful um but yeah he lies about like the music he listens to to impress this girl and then there's a bunch of these cool older skater dudes who he also wants to impress and hang out with so he tells them like oh yeah I like I film skate videos no uh runs home Googles how to film a skate video it's [ ] it's aw it's so stressful to watch but this is a Coming of Age film that's
(10:03) set in a place that we call home and so there's obviously so much that I would want to say about this but ultimately it's just it so perfectly captures adolescence I think that no matter where or how you grew up being a teenager is so painful and confusing and everything feels so [ __ ] up with your family and you can't ever say the right thing and everyone thinks you're dumb and it's just so lonely sometimes but I think there's a lot of comfort in knowing that oh that wasn't just me especially watching this film like every every
(10:39) teenager ever has felt this way and I kind of tend to avoid looking back on photos and memories from this time because every post every caption every diary entry it's all just so it feels so embarrassing to look back on but I think that this film it made me think about the fact that instead of glossing over this period of time maybe we can do what this film does what dd does and kind of lean into the fact that everyone else was Dumb and embarrassing too and maybe instead of like dying a little on the inside whenever we look
(11:20) back on these old photos we can almost look at this part of our Lives as sacred because I think that's part of growing into yourself you know it's being able to look back on that cringey past self and not be mean to them but to hold them and say you know you were just you were just a kid and all those videos of you laughing and doing dumb [ ] and saying dumb [ ] and being cringe like that was just childhood joy that was trying to find its place in this new found adolescence and like couldn't really quite figure it out and so I
(11:56) think that that deserves reverence in its own room right so again I'm really [ ] skimming the surface here though please just watch this film it's so [ ] like there's a reason why it WS UND dance but I now want to kind of get into the whole cry why did I cry throughout the film we watched this kid trying to fit in trying to morph himself into who he thinks will win approval to his childhood friends they call him wingwing and then he experiments with introducing himself as Chris to like these new dudes but it's only at home where you
(12:33) see him drop this facade and at home he's just deed it's at home where the pains and the frustrations of being a teenager really start to surface you know he's really short tumed with his family exasperated at how overbearing they are and just so upset that they're not listening to him and they don't understand him like how all of us felt like teenagers he has an older sister named Vivien who's about to head off to college you know they're always at each other's throats they're telling each other the [ __ ] off they're screaming at
(13:05) each other across the dinner table and like cuz he keeps like stealing her clothes and [ ] and then there's his grandma n n who by the way is the director's actual real life Grandma but she like so many grandmother figures in our lives always nagging and she's ridiculous and she's concerned but then she's really [ ] mean sometimes but then she's also like silly and affectionate and then there's de's mom Chong sing so dei's Mom is essentially a single parent because her husband lives in Taiwan and provides for their family
(13:43) so she's kind of just by herself in America raising two kids looking after her mother-in-law and using any spare moment she can get to paint she has a lot of her own [ ] that she's dealing with under s or you know as as de's life is going on you know her mother-in-law is constantly insulting her for raising her kids poorly talking down on her for being useless and you know her kids [ ] hate each other her son refuses to have a conversation with her you know she loves painting she wanted to be a famous painter but her
(14:22) life took a turn and now she's here taking care of these two kids these two kind of shitty kids um but in spite of all this DD's mom never fails to parent with love there are of course moments where it's really hard and she loses her cool and she's like blinded by rage and they're screaming at each other and her kids are talking back to her and she's like screaming back at them and it's just I think about the fact that I'm sure my teenage self would have sided with Deee during these moments during these fights you know you don't
(15:00) understand me like you never listen to what I have to say but as an adult all I really see all that really comes through for me is a mom just really trying her best so there are a couple of scenes I just wanted to show you today in one of these scenes Dei runs away after an argument with his mom and he comes home the next morning after after spending the night like sleeping in a park or something and he's about to shuffle into his room but then he thinks twice about it and then heads into his mom's room so in the scene Dee comes home and
(15:46) he asks his mom Are you ashamed of me and something she says is sometimes I sit and think about how I ended up here so ordinary is this what my life has amounted too I wonder what if I didn't marry your father if I didn't have you and Vivien what would my life be like maybe I would have come to America by myself and I'd have become a successful artist by now with my own studio in New York sometimes I dream but then getting to watch you and Vivian grow up here make friends and learn so many things I can't teach you I
(16:28) realize you are my dream how could I be ashamed of you I'm so proud and there are other scenes too that I find so powerful there are scenes where de's mom picks him up and she asks have you eaten yet and then she proceeds to feed him I'm going to just I'm just going to show you one of these scenes when I watch that I cried for like 10 minutes all she's doing is just sitting and watching him eat but the love and adoration she radiates is almost overwhelming as complicated as their lives are in these moments it couldn't
(17:20) be simpler she's just a mom nourishing her son and he's just a son letting his mom love him this film is this beautiful depiction of what it's like to be a 13-year-old boy but for me it's an equally powerful narrative about loving a 13-year-old boy and trying to understand him and figuring out how to care for him even when you don't understand him and I love these two scenes because they kind of show both sides of that coin you know there's one where words hold so much power and then there's another where words aren't
(18:10) needed and the thing is I don't even look at it and think fondly to myself like oh this is how I remember my relationship with my parents I think most of us would agree that our parents didn't always have the emotional bandwidth to give us those words that we needed to here and you know in our own healing Journeys we kind of have to accept that for our own peace of mind but watching this I realized this is the kind of parent I want to be this is the kind of parent every child deserves and even if I never had if I
(18:48) never decided to have children like this is the kind of love and understanding and safety that I kind of want to just offer the people in my life the beautiful thing about leaning into love and the reason why we probably keep coming back to this theme week after week after week is that it is the greatest clarifier everything is so simple through this lens even if we weren't lucky enough to have a parent who looked Us in the eye and told us that we are their dream D reminds us that every time they picked us up and asked have you eaten
(19:33) yet they were just loving us the only way they could you know how you were talking about how when you're a teenager Everything feels so dire like you just feel things so strongly MH but I feel like when I look back at that time in my life yes I felt things so intensely but I also was so only concerned about myself like I was the only person alive and when you watch those scenes of Dee and his mom and I'm assuming that you're watching this movie through his perspective and he's the main character but the audience viewers are
(20:23) seeing the subjective story between a mother and a son and it makes me wonder like how many times in my own adolescence did I not even take note of the ways that my parents loved me like I probably was in my head so much or maybe I didn't see my dad look at me across the dining table or maybe I didn't think about what it meant for my mom to pick me up and drop me off every day like as a kid you just like oh yeah that's just just how things are but you don't really dwell on the love behind all of those things I think a lot about when I was
(21:08) younger my parents were like trying this thing where they they put me in like a bunch of extracurriculars like I I did like hoola and tahan and then I was doing like soccer and it was like it was kind of random but they were like driving me everywhere it was kind of like a what life I imagine is like being a soccer mom mhm and I remember they had to stop they had to pull me out because no one could take me and I remember being so upset and I was like why did you even put me in this in the first place you know like like it's just so hurtful to
(21:44) me that like you tell me that I can do this thing and I really like this thing and then you take it away from me and then you say like sorry you just can't do it again like and we can't figure it out we can't find anyone else to take you and I was just so frustrated by it but then I think about like that must have been hard for them too to be excited for me that I was enjoying something and then to have to tell me like sorry like we can't like we can't make this work for you I'm sure that didn't feel great disappointing me and I
(22:13) have no idea why I wasn't really like thinking like oh was it because my dad didn't have a job again you know like right right right you just look at the surface level thing of I'm not getting what I want yeah yeah exactly yeah God we're so dumb when we're young but I mean that's the beauty of growing up and evolving and learning like you can look back on that time and actually appreciate it so much more because you have that Insight now mhm you can give your parents a lot more grace mhm that you literally didn't have
(22:55) the ability to at the time your parents Grace yourself more grace mhm yeah dude I don't know what it is but any story that's about like specifically Asian-American parents [ ] me up dude I'm telling you I was sitting there like I was [ ] no words she's just I know I I kind of loved that the way that she's just like yeah gazing at him and when he looks back at her I think that also broke me a little bit because that is exactly what we're talking about when in that moment like witnessing her witnessing you like what oh my God
(23:35) that's so beautiful yeah and I really appreciate what you said about like the reality for a lot of our parents is that maybe they didn't have the skills to express that to us but I think that we are hopefully old enough now to understand that that doesn't mean it wasn't there mhm yeah I think that's a huge part of healing I just showed you like two very emotional scenes like the rest I swear to God like it's there's a scene like you know they're making like your mom jokes like Yeah well yeah I I frecked your mom dude his mom has cancer oh [ __ ]
(24:23) sorry like I didn't know like sorry for your law like no she's she's not [ ] dude I swear most like 80% of the movie was like that oh my God yeah so good it was only an hour and a half too it's pretty short really MH well you know what if a director can fit a story that poignant in an hour and 30 minutes you know must be [ ] good and here I am talking for an hour 30 minutes about the [ ] story okay [ ] me up okay the overlap is so there please really it is all right well I know I've mentioned my husband Lou several times
(25:13) who on this pod mhm just this guy like we get it like I'm married yeah yeah yeah you love him yeah sure but what can I say he is the love of my life blah blah blah blah blah but he is not the only one there is actually a whole other love in my life that I haven't really talked a lot about on this pod but that will change today and this other love is my little cat Meredith otherwise known as mer Shalom moomo schmurder and so on and so forth just every word without vowels as long as there's an M you know what I mean
(26:00) so she is a 5-year-old silver shaded British shth hair cat with these big green eyes and this little pink nose I know I'm biased but like the most beautiful creature I've ever seen she's the reason I like cats now didn't used to God she's gorgeous okay well I actually grew up in a household that was very anti-pet my parents just did not want to deal and my dad claimed that he was allergic but time has revealed that was very clearly a lie has not sneezed once in my apartment but when I was young I really really wanted a dog
(26:48) and talk about not getting what you want when you're a kid I remember one Christmas I just begged and begged and begged my parents for a dog and I genuinely convinced myself that like Christmas Day I would open up that box and a little puppy would come out they really never got me one they that Christmas came and went never had a pet and yeah I guess I just I had always imagine that once I was on my own I would definitely get a dog fast forward to 2019 my coworker at the time was headed home for the holidays and she needed
(27:27) someone to watch her cat for 2 weeks and she asked me and I was like okay sure did not know [ ] about cats but I was like how hard could it be you know and again I never had a pet growing up and everyone else I knew all had dogs so I was [ ] clueless about cats actually all I knew about them was that they were [ __ ] they hissed they attacked you for no reason no one liked them and this just clearly shows like how poorly educated I was about cats so anyway I end up agreeing to watch this cat for 2 weeks and I very quickly come
(28:14) to the conclusion like holy [ ] cats are chill as [ ] am I a cat lady am I is this my brand so I mean again I really thought my my whole life I just wanted a dog so bad I love dogs but I didn't realize how easy it was to take care of a cat I didn't have to take her outside I didn't have to walk her I didn't have to pick up her poop and she was quiet for the most part she cleaned herself but more importantly she was so sweet I was like oh I didn't realize that cats were affectionate in not the same way as dogs
(28:57) but they showed affection and every night she would cuddle up like right next to my chest and I would just like fall asleep to the sound of her purring and it was so it was so sweet yeah and yeah it just really opened up my eyes to what life with a cat could be like so long story short four months after that cat sitting stint we [ ] got m in April of 2020 oh that's right because we didn't meet her for a long time right at the start of the oh my God I was like we got a quarantine I'm getting a [ ] cat like I need
(29:33) something to live for you know and I feel like it was as with all pets it was fate I found this lady in Gilroy who had a litter of British shth hair cats ready for adoption and there was just one last girly left me and Lou definitely were like we want a girl we want a cat we want a silver one and this lady just had one more left because she was waiting for me so we brought Miss May home when she was 11 weeks old you didn't see her but I I swear to God aren she was like smaller than my foot like she was so she was so little
(30:19) my little baby and we were just so in love with her and when we brought her home there was a big mment period for me and Lou yeah because again he also didn't have a pet growing up this was our first time he didn't mm this was our first time but more importantly for Mar too and that wasn't something I was familiar with because again my first pet but also it was just me learning more and more about cats specifically and I think one of the biggest differences between cats and dogs is that when it comes to cats you
(30:55) have to earn their trust dogs are so loving and so open with their affection and loyalty MH I didn't say it she did and cats are much more reserved and I think that's why they get such a bad rep because [ ] stupid ass people just expect instant love from a random animal that has no idea who you are no like I'm trying to imagine like walking in a mall and just having like a complete stranger coming up to you and be like give me a little hug Fu like I'd be like who the [ ] are you and so makes sense that cats are the same way y
(31:39) you know mhm but anyway I just I just feel so bad that cats have such a bad I know I know I think for those of you that are listening that have a cat you totally get where I'm coming from and you know how these little shits can come off as standoff or uninterested but just the way that they burrow themselves into your heart it's like your brain chemistry changes because you cannot believe how much this little furry creature that lives in your house and wrecks havoc in your life can be the thing that you love
(32:17) most in the world like I I [ ] love my cat so much that is my [ ] girl mhm and this is not a unique sentiment I'm sure everyone who loves their pets just understands what I feel like but I think with cats it's one of those things where unless you've been around a cat you don't quite understand all the hype about it so with all this misinformation about cats and a lot of people who don't like them I hope that this story changes their minds a little bit and uh now that I am a full-blown cat lady my algorithm
(32:57) is consumed with cat videos and I [ __ ] love it but the ones that wreck me entirely are any videos about cat rescues so today after my 45 minute intro oh that was your intro that was my intro sick dude I want to talk about a cat named Bruno and his foster mom Grace Choy who is the founder and director of the happy kitty rescue so my sources for today are the happy kitty rescue's main website and Grace Choice Instagram and Tik Tok accounts @kitty booy and friends and then an interview Grace Choy did with Smalls Cat
(33:46) brand so Grace Troy as I mentioned is the founder and director of the happy kitty rescue which is a nonprofit animal rescue in Los Angeles which she started in 2023 and she was inspired to start this because after years of volunteering at various animal shelters she realized that there was this dire overwhelming need for specifically cats as it turns out cats were the most euthanized population of animals in shelters across the US in La counties alone over 42% of Shel shelter cats were euthanized compared to just 14% of dogs oh my God
(34:33) and again a lot of that is because often times cats are deemed too at risk or they exhibit quote severe behavioral issues because they're difficult to handle in the shelters which is like yeah if you [ __ ] put me in a cage like I'm going to be a little upset you know so anyway Grace decided to start this rescue specifically for the cats who were most at risk for euthanasia and so they take in any cats with neonatal issues special needs cats with medical trauma and again these aggressive behavioral cases on the
(35:15) happy kitty Rescue website it says quote we believe that every life no matter the label is valuable and deserves a second chance we are committed to showing every animal that comes through our doors the patience compassion and love they deserve so basically Grace is an angel on Earth and just as an aside nothing to do with my story she's like the most beautiful person I've ever seen like she's she's stunning she is stunning okay grace drop the skincare routine seriously okay so Grace makes a lot of content about the cats that come through
(35:57) her her rescue and obviously I eat that [ __ ] up she has over 2.8 million followers on Tik Tok and this is only an account that's less than 2 years old mhm okay sick sick yeah but yeah she documents a lot of the cats that she Fosters and she captures their progress and obviously every cat that comes through her home over the course of several videos you watch this complete transformation take place and it's beautiful so I want to share with you the story of just one of Grace's Foster cats and his name is Bruno so grace started posting videos of
(36:39) Bruno in April of 2024 and from her caption he was brought in as a stray we don't know much about his history but he was quickly labeled aggressive by shelter staff yet for whatever reason when Grace met with him for the first time he was surprisingly super affectionate to her and he immediately came up to her and asked for pets because again she is an angel on Earth and he probably saw that so Grace was like okay there's definitely potential here let me Foster him at home and see where this goes by the way obviously I will link these videos of
(37:24) Bruno in our show notes but let me just say Bruno bro is a [ __ ] gorgeous cat his coat has this tuxedo pattern but instead of it being black fur it's like this really rare chocolate ombre brown oh and then he has these like beautiful ocean blue eyes oh my God stunning he's a stunning cat yeah also the name Bruno so cute right so there are over 30 videos of Bruno on Grace's page and we're going to watch all of them we're not going to watch all of them but she would post like every day his progress and I will just share some of the
(38:06) highlights with you today of course I obviously watched every [ __ ] one but I will show you some of these more poignant Clips again you can find Bruno's full story in our show notes um but I'm going to start off with day one that Grace and Bruno share together and what you'll see is that again even though Bruno was really sweet when he met Grace at the shelter his demeanor definitely shifted when he goes back to Grace's house he is very clearly scared and overstimulated and he lashes out at Grace and you see why he was deemed
(38:46) aggressive because he's like hissing and scratching her she says in her caption I think it's going to take some time for him to fully settle in and feel safe but I'm confident that with patience he'll come around so I just shared the day one post and day one video that Grace shared of her time with Bruno I'm going to fast forward to day8 and this video starts off really sweet you can just tell like how much Bruno Just craves love and attention and he keeps coming up to Grace asking for pets but again we don't
(39:32) really know anything about Bruno's past we don't know if he had a previous owner we don't know if there was any abuse but in this clip even though Bruno is clearly enjoying his pets and cautiously letting Grace in something unexpectedly triggers him and he ends up attacking her so I'm going to show you that video It's A Hard watch so I wanted to show this clip in particular because it shows that when we're on our journey of healing it's often times not linear Grace and Bruno had been making really great strides within that first
(40:23) week and then it just felt like this huge setback when he got triggered and got violent and you can see on poor Bruno's face after he attacked it was almost like he felt shocked by his own actions and he kind of just lays there like oh [ __ ] did I just do that it was like he had this trauma response that was beyond his control and some of the comments that I read on that video were like right before he attacks her you can see that her hand was kind of like in fist so again it's like we don't know if that had triggered maybe like a really
(41:02) bad memory for him we don't know right but Grace when she gets attacked she's obviously upset and she's physically hurt but there is just such empathy for this cat like she doesn't raise her voice she doesn't retaliate she doesn't give up on him and I know how desperately so many of us would want a love like that so after this episode Grace kind of recalibrates her approach and really lets Bruno take the lead and as it turns out with just persistent patience Bruno becomes an entirely different cat and if you watch the whole
(41:51) series over the next several days you see these small victories Brun Bruno learning how to play with a cat wand Bruno relaxed enough to make little biscuits with his paws Bruno learning how to gently ask for pets and Grace consistently there showering him with love and affirmation so I'm going to skip to days 19 and 20 and here is when you really start to see this transformation in Bruno so I just played that video for ARs and here is an excerpt from the caption Grace wrote we finally had our first major breakthrough I've been keeping our
(42:46) sessions short and sweet the last few days I haven't initiated any pets and the main focus has been playing with our toys when I walked into his room the this day he immediately came up to me and seemed so happy to see me I was shocked I sat down on the couch and he jumped into my lap Bruno finally decided that he wanted love so in this video you see Bruno kind of Nestles himself into Grace's lap for the first time and he just rests his head and his paws against her stomach and you hear his really loud purs and he just closes his
(43:35) eyes and if you are cat illiterate that's basically all of the signs that a cat feels safe Grace says it felt like he trusted me for the first time and from that day forward brce Bruno fully leans into love he learns how to not be so afraid and untrusting and he opens up his heart to the warmth of affection the rest of Grace's videos of Bruno from this day reveals this completely loving side to Bruno I'm going to play one more video here and that's of day 20 just the next day and although we've been talking about Bruno
(44:25) making these really great m Stones here you'll see that Grace herself is also leaning into this because over the last 20 days of things being up and down she also kind of has her guard up too she's also a little bit reserved but this moment that they share together on day 20 it's like it was meaningful for both of them so in this video Grace captures their first hug over the last 20 days grace herself like I mentioned has built up these walls as she learns about Bruno's limits but on this day she sits on the ground
(45:14) and Bruno walks right up to her and she finally feels safe enough to pet him without any of her protective gear in her caption she says after 20 ult days of drawing and learning each other's boundaries Bruno and I finally built enough trust to both drop our fears and lean into love there are still some days ahead for Bruno where he is still learning and working through his triggers Bruno has to understand Grace's own boundaries but in spite of all of these challenges it's so clear how someone else's care completely transforms
(46:02) Bruno the rest of the videos just show how Bruno is so like he's just constantly purring next to her asking for pets and just wants to be close to her and to think that he would have been on the fast track for euthanasia when he has so much love to offer this world if only someone had enough patience to give him the chance she says Bruno has taught me so much about the power of patience and love he is also a beautiful reminder of the incredible ability animals have to heal when given the chance his journey wasn't
(46:43) easy but it was so worth it so after four incredible months together Grace announces that Bruno was ready for his forever home she knew that he needed a place with a lot more stability and focused attention and since she was still fostering other kittens and running the shelter she knew she couldn't be that constant that he needed and deserved so Grace matched Bruno with his forever mom a woman named Angela you I wish dude and Grace still posts updates about him on her page and he's just doing so well and the fact that he was even able
(47:32) to open his heart at all is because of all of the work and love and patience that Grace poured into him during their time together in her interview with Smalls Grace says my house is just a stepping stone a temporary Safe Haven to give them a chance at life without it many of these cats would have continued suffering in a cage and faced euthanasia knowing that I've played a part in saving their lives and giving them a chance at a better future makes the good buys more fulfilling than sad my goal is to get them into their
(48:09) forever homes so I can make room for more cats who need help saying goodbye is a sign that I've accomplished my goal and it's a pretty awesome feeling I just I think that there's so much to learn from Bruno's story anyone who loves animals loves the purity of their souls and even when they seem violent or aggressive It's really because deep down they're just hurting or they're scared but they're never malicious I think the same could be said for most people too more often than not the ones that lash out that refuse to
(48:56) let us in that hurt us they're just deeply hurt themselves and they don't know how to accept love or feel safe when it's given to them but just look at how transformative it is when you choose to love someone at their own pace and when we're loved like that when there isn't any selfishness attached to it look at how much brighter the world becomes so thank you Grace for not only sharing Bruno's story but for giving it this beautiful chapter and Bruno I suspect you are not a listener of podcasts but I hope you know just how
(49:45) Loved You Are by so many around the world and I'm so grateful that Grace has opened up your heart to receive it all I'm sorry I I think we wrote the same story right I'm not sure I have anything left to say that I did not already say half an hour ago I know when in that scene when when Dee asks his mom like Are you ashamed of me and she says I am so proud I I think that was that video when he when Bruno lashes out that's what I'm saying just change the names it's the same thing oh my God yeah I think that there's just
(50:32) something to be said about the purity of children and animals but at the same time we all have that inner child who has been hurt and who craves love it's so Universal it is something we all feel we all crave and we all just can be so transformed by yeah and what's hard is that as we're all on our Journeys yes that's all we want but when we've been hurt or we don't know how to ask for it it's like we reject it when it's offered because we have like this protective layer but it's just so beautiful when you have these
(51:21) Souls that are patient enough to wait it out I want to say it's rare but I feel like there like we all have someone like that in our life and we all deserve that when I said we keep coming back to love every week on this pod I wasn't kidding what else is there to talk about there's nothing else to talk about there's nothing else that was beautiful Bruno uh while you were showing me these I was like do I do I want a cat yeah dude I am here to change the rep about cats yeah [ __ ] sick I hope you get one maybe maybe you
(52:10) know love love and cats we're rebranding the Pod BRB love all right cool cool cool thanks everyone for tuning in we hope this made you feel a little something yeah we hope you felt a little love mhm and a little cat we hope that at the end of this episode you went out and adopted a cat yeah send us pictures send us photos please um but seriously thank you for listening we appreciate every week you lending your ears to us if you loved us feel free to leave us a little review on Apple or Spotify you can send us a soop
(52:55) story or you can send us some cry recommendations at our website beb crying podcast.com you can email us hello at beb crying podcast.com and we are also at beb crying. podcast on all socials so you can DM us there or you can just tell all your friends and family about us that would honestly be the most helpful thing there's nothing like a personal wreck you know that could be you so anyway thank you for spending this last hour with us we will see you next week we can do it all over again yep but until then
(53:35) brb crying [Music]
Until next time…brb crying :’)