brb crying

027: dìdi (弟弟), bruno the rescue cat, & learning to accept love

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0:00 | 53:58

This week, Nins & Arns explore two powerful stories about growing up, being misunderstood, and the transformative power of love.

Arns revisits Dìdi (弟弟), Sean Wang's award-winning coming-of-age film set in Fremont, California during the early days of MySpace, AIM, and YouTube. Through the eyes of a Taiwanese American teenager desperately trying to fit in, Dìdi captures the awkwardness of adolescence, immigrant family dynamics, parental sacrifice, and the realization that our parents may have been loving us all along in ways we didn't recognize.

Nins shares the story of Bruno, a shelter cat labeled "aggressive" and at risk of euthanasia, whose life is transformed by the patience, compassion, and unwavering care of Grace Choi and The Happy Kitty Rescue. As Bruno slowly learns to trust and accept love, his journey becomes a moving reminder that healing is rarely linear—and that sometimes all we need is someone willing to stay.

Together, these stories spark a conversation about Asian American identity, childhood embarrassment, family relationships, emotional healing, trust, rescue animals, compassion, and the people who love us through our hardest moments.

Content warning: family conflict, emotional neglect, animal euthanasia discussions, trauma, abandonment, and difficult parent-child relationships.

0:00 - Intro
2:53 - Arns: Dìdi (弟弟)
24:54 - Nins: cat rescue Bruno
52:24 - Outro

Referenced in this episode:

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brb crying—hosted by longtime best friends Nins & Arns—is a podcast where we explore the songs, books, TV shows, films, pop culture moments, and personal stories that help us laugh, cry, heal, and feel a little less alone. Crying is our superpower, and by sharing what makes us cry in a way that makes us laugh, we show how crying helps us connect with ourselves and each other.

Intro

SPEAKER_00

Hi, I'm Angela Nann.

SPEAKER_03

I'm Ariana Kempis.

SPEAKER_00

And this is BRB Crying.

SPEAKER_03

Hello everyone. Welcome back to BRB Crying. I am Ariana, also known as Arnes.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm Angela, also known as Ninz. 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 for you 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. Yeah. So it was like three episodes of like, we're talking like this. So now it's my turn. Of course. Time to pay my dues. I'm gonna be doing that a lot. If it sounds sexy, it is. It is. It's called congestion. All right. That's what I got. Okay. What's I got? On the mend yet? In the thick of it. Always on the mend.

SPEAKER_02

You know what I mean? Oh my god. You know what I mean? Oh. All right. Love it.

SPEAKER_03

How about you? I have a raging headache right now.

SPEAKER_02

But I think it's getting better. Yeah. Always on the mend.

SPEAKER_03

It's really not. It's just very consistently. Yeah. Okay. So. But I'm good. Otherwise. Yeah. Yeah. Scintillating. If you're new here, welcome. We're usually a little more lively. Yeah, a little more chipper. 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.

SPEAKER_00

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 today.

SPEAKER_03

So Yeah, so welcome. Welcome. Thanks for being here. And to all our existing crybabies, welcome back. Love you. Love you. I don't have anything else to say right now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

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 updates to give.

SPEAKER_00

That's fine.

SPEAKER_03

Alright. Do we just start?

SPEAKER_00

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.

SPEAKER_03

What

Arns: Dìdi (弟弟)

SPEAKER_03

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. Um, I thought it would be fitting to start with revealing some of our deepest, darkest secrets from our childhood.

SPEAKER_00

Our?

SPEAKER_03

Our. Okay. Our shared childhood. Yeah, we were one person. Um 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.

SPEAKER_00

Mm-hmm. Um, well, my go-to was Angie Blah.

unknown

Ah.

SPEAKER_00

So clever. I I had that one for a pretty long time.

SPEAKER_03

I feel like most of middle school and high school you had that. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It was a good one. It was a good one. Yeah. Angie Blah.

SPEAKER_03

Angie Blah. Two E's, two H's. Yes. Um, well, I started with Sweet Sunshine 28, and that was S W T, by the way.

SPEAKER_00

Uh-uh. And the I was a one. Oh, hello. Duh.

SPEAKER_03

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 it was like Y A A A. Yeah. Um, I do want to give a little shout out to one of our best friends, Marty. Sorry, Marty. Uh I just I got it. She had the best ones. Um, one of them was Easy Grease Hot Dog. 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.

SPEAKER_00

It was DDR Princess. Love it. God. Dude, I kind of miss them. Because now everyone's like, oh, it's just my name. Yeah. You know. Boring. Boring.

SPEAKER_03

Tell me a little more about yourself. Love the sun.

SPEAKER_02

It's sweet. I'm just like blah, you know?

SPEAKER_03

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 your screen name. Maybe even comment it on our posts on Instagram, our reels. Because today we are transporting ourselves back to that golden era with the film Didi.

unknown

Didi.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, she has not watched it. Ooh, I don't think I've seen this. Oh. All right. My main source for today is an interview with Sean Wing, who is the writer and director of Didi. And it's by Colin McCormack 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 shit, then watch the 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 gonna get the spoilers. Just cancel this recording. I'll be back in like two hours. We'll postpone it. Alright, so DD is a 2024 film written and directed by Sean Wing, starring Isaac Wang and Joan Chent. It premiered at Sundance in 2024, where it won the Best Ensemble Grand Jury Prize and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award. And then it was picked up by Focus Features after that. So it is set in the 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 and Synt 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 Sean Wing, the research was compiled over the seven years of writing this film. So he had like a folder where he was saving like old pictures of, you know, and these designers recreated these deliberately lo-fi websites. It's this is the words I use, 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 Dee Dee, which means little brother, is Taiwanese American, again, from Fremont, 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 2000s. I've never watched a film that so accurately captured my teenage hood. I I actually like I had to close, like I couldn't watch the movie.

SPEAKER_02

I was like, oh my god, like I was I was like, watch this. Because it felt like snippets from my own life. Oh man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I also do want to say that this uh multiple people were like, fuck, you gotta 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, Dee Dee doesn't know shit. 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 telling Which I I felt so hard because like I feel like my parents didn't let me watch a lot of like older kid movies, like racier ones growing up. So like I never understood the references. I would just like pretend that like it's really fucking painful. Um, but yeah, he lies about like the music he listens to to impress his 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 fucking, it's so stressful to watch. But this is a coming-of-age film that's 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 fucked 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 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 Didi 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 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 cringy 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 shit and saying dumb shit and being cringe, like that was just childhood joy that was trying to find its place in this newfound adolescence and like couldn't really quite figure it out. And so I think that that deserves reverence in its own right. So again, I'm really fucking skimming the surface here though. Please just watch this film. It's so fucking good. Like, there's a reason why it won Sundance. But I now want to kind of get into the whole cry. Why did I cry? Throughout the film, we watch this kid trying to fit in, trying to morph himself into who he thinks will win approval, to his childhood friends. They call him Wing Wing. And then he experiments with introducing himself as Chris to like these new dudes. But it's only at home where you see him drop this facade. And at home, he's just Dee Dee. It's at home where the pains and the frustrations of being a teenager really start to surface. You know, he's really short-tempered 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 Vivian who's about to head off to college. You know, they're always at each other's throats, they're telling each other to fuck off, they're screaming at each other across the dinner table, and like, because he keeps like stealing her clothes and shit. And then there's his grandma, Nainai, 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 fucking mean sometimes, but then she's also like silly and affectionate. And then there's Didi's mom, Chung Sing. So Didi's mom is essentially a single parent because her husband lives in Taiwan and provides for their family. 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 shit that she's dealing with under wraps, or, you know, as as Dee Dee'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 fucking 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 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, Dee Dee'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 Didi during these moments, during these fights. You know, you don't 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, Dee Dee runs away after an argument with his mom. And he comes home the next morning 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.

SPEAKER_01

So in the scene, Didi comes home and he asks his mom, Are you ashamed of me?

SPEAKER_03

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 to? I wonder, what if I didn't marry your father? If I didn't have you and Vivian, 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 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 Didi's mom picks him up and she asks, Have you eaten yet? And then she proceeds to feed him.

SPEAKER_01

I'm gonna just I'm just gonna show you one of these scenes. When I watch that scene, I cried for like 10 minutes.

SPEAKER_02

All she's doing is just sitting and watching him eat.

SPEAKER_03

But the love and adoration she irradiates is almost overwhelming. As complicated as their lives are, in these moments, it couldn't be simpler. She's just a mom nourishing her son, and he's just a son letting his mom love him. This film is a 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 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 hear. 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 never decided to have children, like this is the kind of love and understanding and safety that I kind of want to just offer to 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, Dee Dee reminds us that every time they picked us up and asked, Have you eaten yet? they were just loving us the only way they could.

SPEAKER_00

You know how you were talking about how when you're a teenager, everything feels so dire. Like you just feel things so strongly. 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 Didi 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 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 how things are, but you don't really dwell on the love behind all of those things.

SPEAKER_03

I think a lot about when I was younger, my parents were like trying this thing where they they put me in like a bunch of extracurriculars. Like I did like hula and Tahitian, 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 uh what life I imagine is like being a soccer mom. And I remember they had to stop. I 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 it's just so hurtful to 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 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 have no idea why. I wasn't really like thinking, like, oh, was it because my dad didn't have a job again?

SPEAKER_00

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. You can give your parents a lot more grace that you literally didn't have the ability to at the time.

SPEAKER_03

Your parents more grace, yourself more grace.

SPEAKER_00

Mm-hmm.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Dude, I don't know what it is, but any story that's about like specifically Asian American parents, fuck me up, dude. I'm telling you, I was sitting there, like, I was fucking no words. She's just so I kind of loved that.

SPEAKER_02

The way that she's just like gazing at him. And when he looks back at her.

SPEAKER_03

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.

SPEAKER_00

Like what? Oh my god, 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.

SPEAKER_03

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, like making like your mom jokes.

SPEAKER_02

Like, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I f I fricked your mom. Dude, his mom has cancer. Oh, fuck sorry. Like, I didn't know, like, sorry for your loss. Like, no, she's not. Dude, I swear most like 80% of the movie was like that.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god. Yeah, it's so good. It was only an hour and a half, too. It's pretty short. Really? Well, you know what? If a director can fit a story that poignant in an hour and 30 minutes, you know, it must be fucking good. And here I am talking for an hour and 30 minutes about the fucking story.

Nins: cat rescue Bruno

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Fuck 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. Who? On this pod. 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 Schmoomaloom Moo Moo, Schmirgdurg, and so on and so forth. Just every word without vowels. As long as there's an M. You know what I mean? So she is a five-year-old, silver-shaded, British short-haired 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 use 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. 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 imagined 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 someone to watch her cat for two weeks. And she asked me, and I was like, okay, sure. Did not know shit 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 fucking clueless about cats. Actually, all I knew about them was that they were assholes. They hissed, they attacked you for no reasons, 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 two weeks, and I very quickly come to the conclusion like, holy shit, cats are chill as fuck. Am I a cat lady? Am I is this my brand? So, I mean, again, I really thought 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, 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 fucking got mare in April of 2020. Oh, that's right, because we didn't meet her for a long time. Right at the start of the pandemic. Oh my god. I was like, we got a quarantine, I'm getting a fucking cat. Like, I need 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 short 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 Mare home when she was 11 weeks old. You didn't see her, but I I swear to God, Arns, she was like smaller than my foot. Like she was so, she was so little, my little baby. And we were just so in love with her. And when we brought her home, there was a big adjustment period for me and Lou, yeah, because again, he also didn't have a pet growing up. This was our first time. You didn't? Mm-mm. This was our first time. But more importantly, for Mare 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 have to earn their trust. Dogs are so loving and so open with their affection and loyalty. 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 fucking stupid ass people just expect instant love from a random animal that has no idea who you are. No. Like I 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. The fuck? Like, I'd be like, who the fuck are you? Yeah. And so it makes sense that cats are the same way. Yep. You know? Mm-hmm. But anyway, I just I just feel so bad that cats have such a bad work.

SPEAKER_03

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_00

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 standoffish 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 most in the world. Like I f I fucking love my cat so much. That is my fucking girl. 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 is consumed with cat videos, and I fucking love it. But the ones that wreck me entirely are any videos about cat rescues. So today, after my 45-minute intro.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, that was your intro?

SPEAKER_00

That was my intro. Sick, dude. I want to talk about a cat named Bruno and his foster mom, Grace Choi, 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 Choi's Instagram and TikTok accounts at Kitty Boy and Friends, and then an interview Grace Choi did with Small's cat brand. So, Grace Choi, 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 U.S. In LA counties alone, over 42% of shelter cats were euthanized compared to just 14% of dogs.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00

And again, a lot of that is because oftentimes 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 fucking put me in a cage, like I'm gonna 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 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 patient's 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 her rescue, and obviously I eat that shit up. She has over 2.8 million followers on TikTok. And this is only an account that's less than two years old.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00

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 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 Bruno in our show notes, but let me just say Bruno is a fucking 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 highlights with you today. Of course, I obviously watched every fucking one, but I will show you some of these more poignant clips. Again, you can find Bruno's full story in our show notes. 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 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 day eight. 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 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 gonna 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 oftentimes not linear. Grace and Bruno had been making really great strides within that first 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 shit, 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 a fist. So again, it's like we don't know if that had triggered maybe like a really 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 series over the next several days, you see these small victories. 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 gonna 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 Arnes, and here is an excerpt from the caption Grace wrote. We finally had our first major breakthrough. I've been keeping our 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 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 purrs, and he just closes his eyes. And if you are a 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, uh 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 gonna play one more video here, and that's of day 20, just the next day. And although we've been talking about Bruno making these really great milestones, 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 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 difficult 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 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 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 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 goodbyes more fulfilling than sad. My goal is to get them into their 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 is 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. But more often than not, the ones that lash out, that refuse to 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 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.

SPEAKER_03

I'm sorry, 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 Didi asks his mom, like, are you ashamed of me? And she says, I am so proud. I think that was that video. When he when Bruno lashes out.

SPEAKER_00

That's what I'm saying. Just change the name. Yeah, it's the same thing.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my God. Yeah. I think that there's just 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.

SPEAKER_00

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 souls that are patient enough to wait it out. I want to say it's rare, but I feel like they're like we all have someone like that in our life.

SPEAKER_03

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?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Dude, I am here to change the rep about cats. Yeah. Fucking sick. I hope you get one.

SPEAKER_03

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00

Maybe. You know. Love. Love and cats. We're rebranding the pod. BRB love.

SPEAKER_03

Alright. Cool, cool. Cool. Thanks

Outro

SPEAKER_03

everyone for tuning in. We hope this made you feel a little something. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

We hope you felt a little love.

SPEAKER_03

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 sob story, or you can send us some cry recommendations at our website, BRBCrying Podcast.com. You can email us hello at BeerB Cryingpodcast.com. And we are also at BeerB 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.

SPEAKER_00

So anyway, thank you for spending this last hour with us. We will see you next week. We can do it all over again.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

But until then, beer be crying.