Savannah, Mackenize, Alyssa, Jacob and Ella

Savannah Marie - When I went to adopt Savannah I walked into the Humane Society of AZ looking for a kitten, I was a sophomore at the University of Arizona, had my own studio apartment and was bartending on the USAF base to pay for because my mother had told me she would pay the rent and flaked out on it like everything else she ever offered to do that I ended up having to take financial responsibility for from my car, to health insurance when I lived at home, to wisdom teeth and I didn't want to live alone.

There were two black cats, her and her brother. They had been left for dead with their siblings in a wash in the Arizona heat and were the only ones out the litter to survive. The boy cat was bigger and stronger. Savannah was littler and weak, the runt. I wanted a girl kitten, not because I was sexist. I would have taken them both quite frankly, but I had a little apartment and would end up with my bestie's baby, Samantha.

As I was holding her little brother, and making over him and said "Oh my God aren't you precious, if you were a girl I would take you home. The woman holding soon to be Savannah turned to me and said "She's a girl, I'll trade you." So two siblings who the world had thrown away found homes that day.

My mother started call her Savannah Banana, not that she should have been naming any animal..I had to name her dog Lilo . She had given away Demi- after Demi Moore, to my aunt because she was annoying her with her disc our shih-tzu, She-Ra the Doberman because she barked too much , caused Nikki's death by leaving a choke chain on her, our Huskie, named after her mother that was my step-father's pride and joy. Had me put Molly (After Molly Ringwald) too sleep rather than pay for the vet bills so she could go to Hawaii, driven Pebbles and Guinevere out of the house to be taken in by neighbors, left Cidney in Arizona with me, when I found her when she lost her days before moving to Hawaii and left without her, and had me take care of Kukui when she was moving back unconcerned about his shots, or anything.

I had Savannah for 18 years, through up and down, she was my co-pilot and the alpha cat of the house who loved French fries, gold fish crackers and anything else human she wasn't supposed to and I didn't let her have, but oh did she try.

About a year into our lives in Savannah, Ga I went to the dentist on the second day of the year, literally tucked her in my bed and went off to my appointment. When I got home she couldn't walk, her legs unusable. I am pretty sure she had had a seizure. She was still trying to walk. I picked her up just as she lost control of her bladder and I knew. I called our wonderful vet clinic, Central Animal Hospital, wrapped her in a baby blanket, put her in her carrier and drove her to the clinic. I knew she wasn't coming back with me. A kitty mom just knows. The companion that had been my child more than my cat, who had grown up with me like she was Rory in Gilmore Girls, who had to be nursed through a horrible URI when I brought home her sister Alyssa, being syringe fed water and baby food, rushed to the emergency vet for subQ fluids, who had been my angel through college with a taste for Mountain Dew, Cheetos (it was the orange dust that always gave it away) and who I named not after Savannah, Ga but a character in a romance novel I read, Cry Wolf by Tami Hoag. Her middle name from Aristocrats.. because she was the original Diva..

Savannah also had a taste for hermit crabs. She ate my Hermit Crab Elmo (don't judge me even hermit crabs need names and I loved him so therefore he got a name), and birth control pills that her vet would bring up for years every time I brought her in for her shots and make me relive the panicked call when the even he was laughing so hard he could barely talk, only to tell me she was just fine and not to worry.

The day she passed away January 2, 2013, I made a new friend, Dr Alex Hill. He knew he couldn't save her. I knew he couldn't save her and saying goodbye had to be done. Tears fell down my eyes at an uncontrollable rate, losing her was not just losing my "cat" it was losing my daughter, my friend, my companion. The thing that made my world right when my biological family never had. I was in such tears. Dr. Alex as he would come to be to me, not sure how to stop the tears, and concerned for me after I had to watch her go, just stared at me trying to figure out how to make it better. He simple said to me "Don't worry about paying me until the she's back, do you need a ride home?" In my strong girl, mortified for having cried in front of this man, whose compassion could be never be described and exceeds that of Christ Compassion and Irelate, I pouted up my lip, squared my shoulders and said no. I have a doctor's appointment.

He looked at me like he had no idea how to make it better, and knew that I was going to get myself through the day, nodded his head and said I will call when she's back. All of our adventures I documented with my Iphone, and even her own Twitter account. No quite two years without photos, or even her ashes because of someone who physically beat me when I dated him and the department he belongs, to I still look up to the sky and tell her how much I need her courage. How much I need her to be my sidekick even from Heaven.

We raised a baby together for 6 months. We took on the world together and formed a family that could never be broken until a week before Mother's Day 2019, when Diamond Newton and R Montgomery treated us worse than I have seen Tybee police officers allow a dog to be treated, while I stood there with my boyfriend the week after the GGIA Conference 2015. because I wanted to make sure they were okay despite my boyfriend, a fellow officer not picking up on that maybe they might need back up.

Who decided they were taking her brother, Jacob and sister, Ella after having left the three of us in my car in Pooler at a Starbucks, because my car battery died and rather than start it they decided her brother and sister could be rehomed, and left me in the car. I have tried for two years to get anyone to help me get justice for them, but no has cared about them or me. From Savannah Patrol officers who refused to even take me to my then friend Det. Mason Hamm, or refused to even drive me to police headquarters each and every time I asked them for help, not much different than the Brunswick Police throwing me out of a shelter and video taping it and telling me to go sleep outside in the cold February weather.

Alyssa Megan- A few years later after college, in 2001 living with my USAF boyfriend, Christopher Oliver came Alyssa. Savannah needed a friend. Another trip to the Humane Society and this little girl with the pink heart nose became kitty number two. I had her first baby tooth in a small Manila envelope, the size that came with my test round with my Ruger SR(, tucked next to photos of the animals my mother had abandoned, much like she had me, in an Anne Geddes photo book with my former fiancé, Michael Kraus' flight patch he had given me the day we got engaged in Altus, Oklahoma.

She was not named after anyone special but she was "noble" . I spent hours on my computer looking at baby names and fell in love with the name Alyssa. She got my middle name because well she was a mini me. Her nickname was "Issa Bear" because she was as cuddly as a teddy bear and I could say things to her like look "It's an Issa bear."

Alyssa was this beautiful soul embodied in a cat body. She had the sweetest tenderest heart. She never was like Savannah attention whoring, she just was. She was also the bravest. This sweet beautiful girl would be my guiding angel when my heart was broken. She was the easiest to love and the one that I can never get over losing. In 2015, on a cold day, the same day her sister had passed away years earlier, I just knew something wasn't right when she had gotten in the empty cat food bag and gotten it stuck on her head. My heart was dying, I couldn't lose her , and not the same day as her sister.

I bundled her up in a baby blanket and her carrier and made the drive to Dr. Alex. I knew it wasn't good. As I waited outside the clinic calling into my job as a Juvenile Probation Officer, trying to get them to understand I had to take care of her and I needed someone to cover a court hearing in front of then Presiding Judge LeRoy Burke which they weren't in the least understanding about, I called my friend Steve Tollison in Kansas because I needed some moral support. That man, ex Army listened to me cry and tried to do everything he could to get me to stop. Dr Daniel Iger, told me I had to make a choice to help her fight for her life or let her go. I couldn't give up on this beautiful angel.

So began an 18 month battle with kidney disease. That day, because I had no back up at work I went in. I did my hearing for Kenneth Warren. Kenneth was this young man who had a very rough home life and a very sweet heart. After the hearing, he looked at me and said "Ms. Rogers are you okay?" Never one to lie to my work kids or at all I said "My cat is sick and I don't know if she is going to be okay?" He looked at me with his unknowing wisdom despite of the tattoos, and mother who wasn't there and said "What is her name?" I raised an eyebrow not out of anything more then not knowing why he was asking and responded "Alyssa." The words he said still follow me "I will pray for her." I am not going to lie, tears started falling down my face because I was hurting so badly. He was one of two of my work kids who adopted Alyssa. The other was Lauren Deloach. This girl was hell on my patience but had this beautiful heart and an amazing dad struggling to run a business and raise two daughters , but he did something right. Lauren would come into office for visits when I and everyone else weren't trying to track her down. Like Kenneth, she could tell I was hurting. I told her , just like I had Kenneth, because to me my work kids were my children. Same as Kenneth she asked her name and said she would pray for her. Every time she came to the office she would want to see a picture of Alyssa, and of course I would show her. Losing those kids in April 2016, everyone of them breaks my heart, just like Alyssa.

Alyssa would have 18 months more to live. Between working and trying to get my job back, were daily Sub Q fluids given at home, special powders that Dr. Alex spent time trying to give me the least expensive way to get, shots of Procrit, and gobs of tubes of vitamins Dr. Alex, recommended. Monthly visits to the vet and my one and only encounter with asking a man out.

One of the things, I remember the most aside from Hurricane evacuations and having to stop to make sure Alyssa had her fluids was the day Dr Alex told me she had a fighting chance. Knowing my baby had a chance I hugged him. More of a reaction to the news than anything else. It wasn't anything more than me being me. I sensed almost immediately he was uncomfortable and pulled away. Only to see him smiling. Many months later I had asked my then friend Tad Duncan, if he had a girlfriend. He said no, and encouraged me to ask him out. I wrestled with it for a few days and decided to try. I bought him a $10 gift card for Wolf Gang Bakery in Savannah because I knew how much he loved his dogs. I remember seeing them, laying by him when I would go into the clinic after work to see Alyssa, when she had bout of needing more medical attention than even I could manage. I left the card with his receptionist and took Alyssa home.

While at work, in this little retail shop, he called and left a message. He started it with "This is Dr. Alex" and went into medical stuff about her kidney levels. Midway through he stopped and switched gears. If you are ever going to get turned down for coffee, he made it the sweetest rejection. He explained he would have loved to but he was seeing a lady down the street from his house and that he couldn't. Mortified because I had thought he was single I spent the afternoon, swearing I would never ask another guy out. I never have. For two reasons, mostly because men apparently have hated me for the last two years, which sadly hasn't changed even in North Georgia.

Alyssa had this fighting sprit that on my bad days, reminded me I had to keep trying for her and our family, because we were all we had. Then came the day, the call from Dr. Alex that he end was coming. He didn't have to really say it. I had told him, when it is time just tell me, I can't let her suffer, I can't watch her hurt. I was working in a little retail shop on River Street. Dr. Alex called and I understood his tone more than I did the BUN numbers, which I always looked up later so I could understand. It was time to stop fighting and just enjoy what time we had left.

I was still trying to keep her comfortable because even getting off the bed was impossible for her at this point, which lead to a lot of sheets being washed but I never minded. I could never be angry with her. Memorial Day 2017, I woke up and she was laying next to me. The only thing about her that was alive was her breathing. She had another accident so I picked her up like a baby, took her to the kitchen and bathed her. I called the emergency vet and they didn't care. I also knew she wasn't going to make the drive into Savannah. I wrapped her up in her Winnie the Pooh baby blanket, took her outside to the porch and just sobbed. I couldn't do anything but hold her until she passed away. I didn't want her sister and brother to feel the pain, because I knew she was a part of the glue that held our little tribe together. For hours, I sat and held her body, not so silently begging God to take her. It was like having your heart ripped out of your body while you were alive every second. Finally, she took this deep breath and was gone. I was relieved that she had finally gone to be with her sister Savannah. I knew she would be safe, because my step-father was there, she had a kitty sister, and brother, she had dog family Cidney, my mother's dog she had thrown away at the dump in Rio Rico when she died from having eaten something and Molly, the poodle I had had as a child and as an adult had to take to put her to sleep because my mother didn't care to even be with her in her last moments. I knew she had my Grandmother and Grandfather who had always made sure I had when my parents failed me which was pretty much every time they opened their mouths, and one of the reasons I don't have her sister and brother, Jacob and Ella. Him and Diamond Newton and R, Montogmery with the Pooler PD, along with Chief Ashley Brown who rather than answer an email has no concerns his officers left us in a car, then forced me to give them up and left me in the car for many more months. That battle I have been fighting for almost two years where no one cares about them or me. When they took my car in mid-July 2019 illegally, I was given less than 10 minutes to take something. I took her ashes and her brother's..that Savannah PD took a few months later.

Mackenzie Clayton -my first boy cat. He came home with us because I went to the Humane Society, always a mistake for someone with a heart like mine. I went to look at cats, and there he was. The only cat in a room full of cages. At six months, "Lionel" as he had been named had been left when all the the other cats were taken to Petsmart for adoption. I asked the volunteer why he was the only cat left behind. She told me he was being put to sleep that night. My response..no he isn't, he has a home. He would be Kenize for short.

His name came from Sarah Mackenzie on JAG and Clayton Webb when she was dating him. A bit of a Shipper, and JAG being my favorite show, it just fit. Mackenzie was the first cat I had die. He was this mountain of a cat, with a weird habit of sleeping in the bathroom sink. His nose would split during the summer and have to be covered in vaseline. He was like a mini lion. Mackenzie after 8 years of being my first boy, developed kidney issues. Unfortunately, they weren't caught soon enough and like my step-father Albert he lost his battle quickly. A few months after he was rushed to the emergency vet in the middle of the night, I had a dream. My step-father who passed away when I was 18 after batting kidney issues for a few years , who had given in when his sister wouldn't help with a kidney transplant who told me on his death bed "I will always watch over you. You will never ever get hurt. " Albert walked into my tiny apartment and picked up Mackenzie , kissed me on the forehead and walked out of the room with him. The next morning, Kenzie wasn't well. So there was an emergency trip to Feline Ltd. and he didn't get to come home with me. He was the reason that each time one of my Wondersmalls died, their carrier sat in the backseat of my Toyota Corolla. I couldn't bare to bring it in for months. It was an act of finality that they were gone. That the tribe was missing a part of it that would never be made whole. We would stitch it together the best we could, we would get another cat because there was always an animal that needed a forever home, but the their spot in the tribe could never be filled. It would take years before I wouldn't slip and call the one of them by the the others name. I wish I had pictures to share of him, but they were taken by two sheriff's deputies in Savannah, GA when they took my MacBook Pro , Iphone and IPAD in June 2019 that it took me four months to report because they refused to let me make a report. I still remember the day I made the report 10/16/2019.

I had gone to Battalion One Savannah Fire for medical reasons, and instead of giving me medical treatment they called the Savannah Police Department after asking me what I thought they should do. Like a probation officer with a Psychology Degree and no access to Google should be able to diagnosis edema no hospital and Chatham County EMS would treat, especially after having had a gall bladder surgery, and being told by EMT's, police officers and nurses there were restraining orders against me that have never existed, after having officer Derrick Roberson and three other black male police officers dump me on the corner of a CVS in the middle of the night.

Mackenzie was was this loving little lion. He was mischievous as hell and would get under your feet every time you went into into the kitchen and bathroom. When he passed away, i bought a $250 urn, and a paw print locket that had is ashes in it.

With him gone, I needed a boy cat.. then came Jacob.

Jacob Taylor- Jacob never really got a nickname. I tried a few but they never fit so he just became my surrogate boyfriend. He cuddled like one, followed me around like one and annoyed me like one. I use the term annoy to mean, was a mama's boy and the light of my life. There wasn't anything 10 minutes with him wouldn't fix. I would sometimes hurt so bad tears would well up in my eyes and he would be laying on the couch, in what I called his Popple ball, I would put my head on him ever so lightly until the tears passed. There were times I fell asleep like that. My friends in the Tucson Police Department, Pima County Sheriff's office and Tucson Fire put a "Twilight Girl" sticker on the back lower corner of my brand new car. Not seeing it until weeks later, it was AZ heat baked on. Wasn't angry it was just my friends way of telling me they loved me.

Jacob was named after Jacob from Twilight (not a fan of the books or movies but A PO I worked with in AZ Courtney Robinson was and got me to read the books) and Taylor Lautner who played him, He came to live with me two days after Mackenzie died, a few days after Thanksgiving . When I would take Mackenzie to see Denise at Feline Ltd Jacob was one of the strays someone had brought her and she fixed up and put up for adoption. Three was enough but when Mackenzie died, Jacob had already imprinted and he had to come home just after Thanksgiving 2010. Jacob will always be the light of my life. He was the dumbest, sweetest boy and those blue eyes could melt any bad day way. He would curl up on my chest, all 14 pounds of him. I would wake up not being able to breathe. He took Alyssa's death the hardest. He was left with his spunky abet misfit sister Ella and a mom who still can't forget every kiss, every time he would hide under the bed when my boyfriend would come over, to the point I would worry that he wasn't eating and put a bowl of soft food under the bed for him. He was never brave, but onky with him was life complete. He was this amazingly silly, afraid of even a knock on the door, ball of love. He would try to get into the water when I would take a bath to try and calm what the world would take from me. He literally recharged my spirit and gave me a reason to keep moving forward because if anything happened to me, him and Ella had no one. Just like I didn't and haven't for almost two years.

Trying to give him a bath was like trying to bathe a 14 pound dead weight with cucumber shampoo from Dr Alex. I remember going to Central Animal hospital in November 2019 to get Dr. Alex's help. Only to be turned away from the same vet tech, Tad who was my friend and had come to get his sister's body when she died.

I was turned away like I had been by everyone else and every agency in Savannah, thinking someone would help me get my animals because even Twitter loved them so much they had their own Twitter Page, and their own peeps on my Twitter page.

I still could tell you they will only eat one kind of treats- Temptations. They only like one brand of wet food, it was their Kitty crack- Fancy Feast. Jacob loves foil balls more than anything you could ever give him to play with, that Ella won't eat any kind of people food just like Alyssa, and Jacob would eat everything he shouldn't have, Including trying to eat crumbs from cupcakes from Back in the Day in Savannah.

Cidney-Ella Caylee - Ella was already named Ella when I adopted her, just like her brother from Feline LTD. I was a juvenile probation officer in Az. Her husband John, worked as a JDO, Juvenile Detention Officer, and ex-Army he is the reason Ella had a home. I had just broken up with my ICE boyfriend when he moved to California. He would later sexually assault me on the day of his brother's funeral. I never pressed charges because I didn't want to have to go through the questions about why and how- he had been kicked out of the Marines during basic training for a knee injury. OPR- Office of Professional Responsibility was investigating him for some type of financial issue and called me at work to come give a statement, likely assuming I knew things I didn't other than the weird things he would was doing with his Thrift Savings Account, and his bestfriend Anthony lifestyle. I had no idea, I just knew it looked weird. OPR never investigated the sexual assault but they took a statement. Then came Ella. I named her Cidney-Ella after the dog my mother had thrown in the landfill, because it sounded like Cinderella and Caylee Anthony, the child Casey Anthony who may have gotten off and gone to work for her attorney, but we all know killed her child if not physically by being so unconcerned about her that her body would be found by by utility dispatchers.

Ella's story is a sadder one, that is why I wanted her to have a beautiful name. She was the runt of an abandoned litter, born to a mother with a herpes infection, she was unable to see out of one eye because of the scar attached to her eyeball. Every family that adopted her didn't want her and returned her to Denise. John, if I remember was ex-Army and one of the best JDO's I have ever met, and a great work friend. I went to his wife clinic mostly because trying to tell John no was impossible . There she was this teeny tiny 7 pound cat, hiding under the counter. If that doesn't tug at your heart strings you are dead inside, and so Denise found an old carrier and she came home to live with me and the other wonderfursmalls. It took me literally until almost the day we moved to Georgia to get her to sleep in my room.

Just before we moved to Georgia she had to have some teeth pulled as the result of malnutrition. When I brought her home she planted her self on my childhood dresser and through 10 days of quarantine at home, she finally felt safe enough to sleep on the bed. We all stayed with my friend Corey Molliei in San Antonio on the way to Georgia. (Thank you Corey..you didn't tell me you were allergic until after I left) , a former Firefighter and Ex Army. We never had a moment I didn't love her to pieces. She was always the quiet one, who never really wanted attention until just before bed. Then she would nuzzle herself up and make sure she got it, and who was I to ever tell her no. A touch anti-social but more by being returned so many times until she moved in with us.

She was nicknamed after Ellabell, Ga. On the way to Pembroke to do DJJ paperwork I drove though Ellabell. Usually nicknames get shorter but if it fits it does,, and so became Ellabell. There are no words to describe her, she grew up to be a spitting image personality wise of her sister Savannah. When Alyssa died, she became the momma wrangler, everything I ever did in my life was for these two animals, to protect them, to make sure we had a better life, that we were never apart, come hell or high water. There was always a back up plan for them. Always some place I could have put them where they would be safe. I raised them like children, they didn't have men in and out out the house- only two men ever were in their space, one who almost made me a mother and the other the only police officer I could ever trust- Steve Collins. They never went without, I did for them. I never ever had a cross word to say to them, and despite Andrea Epting's advice in July 2017, I did not move to Athens, give them up and go live in my car until I could get a job. I had a dead car battery no one would jumpstart, and police officers willing to kill them and me.

I remember having to get their medical records to get their microchip numbers, because they had been in my Iphone that Will a former coworker took in June 2019, and emailing them to Chief Ashley Brown in February 2021 hoping he would realize that they mattered, despite that his patrol officers had forced me after 10 days without food, after weeks of going without so they could eat- to give them up, bought me IHOP and told me I was going to give them up as they drove away and left me with the two BLTS, and a Turkey sandwich and fries as Diamond Newton and R. Mongomery left me to die in the May heat of Pooler in a car that just needed a jumpstart. I even emailed Mayor Rebecca Benton, in desperation to get my animals justice just last week and her refusal to even return an email. All of this because I dated one of their patrol officers who beat me up for accidentally calling him "Steve" when I had fallen asleep on his couch, and had a nightmare about when I was raped in Brookhaven and when I came home from Dalton when I went to get his help but wouldn't bother him at work because I didn't want to be like his ex wife on 03/13/2019.

I thought when I finally got back to Dalton in July 2020 that he would rescue me and help me get Jacob and Ella back and where they should be with me. He wouldn't talk to me. In two years, everything I believed about law enforcement has been destroyed and reinforced over and over again. Every officer I ever trusted, has turned their back on me, every police chief has remained silent when I have reached out to them and no one cares about these two beautiful creatures, or their mother. No one from Chatham County Juvenile Court judges. Sadly, that pattern seems to be repeating itself as I find myself being told I matter less than a man who I thought was going to be my saving grace. Faced with once again not having a home, being treated like a unwanted step child by a man I have tried to get to even show one once of love from in the last eight months who has treated me like I am and the problem and told me so.

The day these animals were taken I gave them all my angels, because I thought the people that were supposed to protect and serve would never do what they have done .. left one of their own to die , with no good resources given what even Hall County has done to me, the one place I felt safe, the one place that could have been my forever home, has been turned into Chatham County. These two creatures got me through the LSAT in 2018, along with my belief everything would get better. I should be studying for it now and instead I am writing a story of a tragedy that never stops. Every day away from them breaks me down, after almost two years without them the pain is so heavy I can barely even consider a life without them or that we are unimportant to everyone that we should be apart or ever should have been.

We should be in Alabama, in a little apartment with me in law school, not me facing taking the LSAT again, for the second time, alone because of a dead car battery. Sadly the LSAT won't get to be taken because no one wants to give me a place to study, work or live..We should have all been rescued by thousands of people not pushed further apart. Everywhere I have been in the last two years, I have named homeless animals, BB8 aka Daredevil and Marble in Pooler, one that looked like Alyssa outside the Embassy Suites in Savannah, one the day I left before Hurricane Dorian, even naming squirrels after a friend's twin boys, Thing One and Thing Two and whozit. ButterFinger outside Staff Zone in Savannah, one in Gainesville and Buttercream, because I never met an animal I didn't love, or a child. Just no one loves me enough to return a phone call or keep me safe and help me.

These animals were never just animals, they were my family...my heart, my purpose for everything. Without them I will never be okay. I will never have a home, because they were my home. They were my forever, my cause, my cheerleaders. They were why I wanted better for K-9's. They were not my partners in crime but my angels with paws. They aren't a dependency case, because I was mom and dad, they are angels taken by Police Acting badly who have no concern about what they did to me or them, who have treated homeless mothers better, who are supposed to be youth mentors that I wouldn't let near any child, or animal, who have committed animal cruelty, and aggravated assault.

Everyday I remember them, that we had a safe place to go, multiple of them but for a dead car battery. Their origin story, I couldn't make up. Their story is as much a part of mine as I am of theirs. If I could change one thing, it would be never dating a Pooler PD patrol officer. These Carebears need an Army of Angels as do I, because I don't have the answers for why, there is no why. I know what happened and that they are as lost as I am. Hopefully someone will take up their cause and mine.