The Cats who Chose Me: Kim’s Story of Healing and Love

‘I LOVE CATS!’
‘Ooh, yes, me too. My little…insert name here…brings me so much joy. How many do you have?’
‘6.’
‘6?!’
‘6.’
The pause. The visual clues that the mind is whirring with the new information.

For this particular collection of cats, 6 is the limit. We have a cat flap that allows them unfettered access to the outdoors, which all use enthusiastically. Well, some more than others, weather depending.

I have had cats since a little girl; my first, Sylvester, was a black stray with multiple six-toed paws. My shadow, he’d walk me to the bus stop in the morning and would be waiting for me there to escort me back from school. One day, a few months after healing from a snake bite, he didn’t come home. I was beside myself.

A year or so later, two kittens needed homing after being dumped at the local fire station. My dad agreed to letting us have one. Part Siamese, Mitsu had the most beautiful face with a delicate dusting of freckles across her nose. The way her little head would poke out of my dungarees’ pocket as a kitten, out on pre-teen adventures of forts and bike rides. She was, though, the moodiest of all cats! The nicknames given to her by my family were not the most endearing.

I continued taking her everywhere with me–moving (8 times!), sat in my lap, across Florida. When I relocated to Key West, it was me, her, and my small fish tank cushioned by a pile of clothes in the footwell. What more do you need?! I used to leave my apartment door ajar so she could come and go as she pleased while I was out and about. In island life, there was no need or regard for ‘security measures’.

Before moving to Japan, on an impromptu road trip with a friend, I was taking Sweet Pea, the misnomer which I came to endearingly call her, to Kentucky to live on my friend’s farm while I was abroad. After sleeping next to my head on the beach in Jacksonville, she went under the boardwalk just after watching the sunrise with us, closed her cataracted eyes, and said goodbye. She was 15. I cried all the way through Georgia.

When James and I moved to Warrington, every rental house interview came with the question, ‘Do you allow cats?’ at the top of the list. Not having a feline in the house for a few years was like walking around with a hole in the heart.

They are not as overt in that unconditional love like a dog. I feel like I need to earn it; that when a cat chooses me it comes from that indeed. A choice. It is a privilege to be the recipient of a cat’s grace. I remind myself of this every time I am cleaning up a hairball or combing an errant poo from one of my long-haired friends.

Speaking of poo clean-ups, this is one of the many reasons I am not a dog person. I don’t dislike dogs, I just don’t want one in the house. I have 6 cats because as Fred, my son of 17, got older, I got broody sometimes. They are easier than having another baby!

Monkey

First came Monkey. He just turned 19! We brought him home on Halloween, less than a week after moving here. He used to walk the Twenty Acre Wood with us, running back and forth between us as we played catch.

He was an explorer from the get-go, the joy from the first time in snow to welcoming a new baby to chasing geese and peacocks that frequented the space behind the house. He has tolerated in a princely manner the influx of others. Not friendly, per se, but reminds them succinctly who is Alpha.

He has slept on or next to my head for nearly 20 years. Even though I have given him his own pillow, he still often likes to share mine.

I know he knew I had breast cancer. He didn’t leave my side and would pointedly and sometimes painfully make me aware of the lump growing in my breast. Near immediately post-surgery he would daily massage the scar area, pausing only when radiation was administered. He resumed his nightly purring chest massage 6 weeks to the day afterwards. How he knew . . . but I credit him with helping save my life.

River

Next was River. James’ 30th birthday gift. 9 months old and having already been in 3 homes, this black beauty chose us with his plaintive cry and eyes from inside his pen at St Helen’s Cat Protection. Aptly named, he goes with the flow and gets along with almost everyone, regularly giving Chana and Kumo a little head grooming.

He has one white whisker, an obsession with rubber bands, and a penchant for sleeping in the strangest of places–on the toaster, in a bag or a plant pot, or on a pile of books.
River and Monkey are now both in need of daily thyroid medication but it has not slowed them down one bit.

Rosie

Rosie is a force to be reckoned with. A tortie with The Softest Fur, she compensates with an unpredictable swipe; luckily her bite is less lethal. She’s gummy as she lost all her teeth due to congenital gingivitis.

She was found on CP’s website; all of our cats are from there. In a foster house with 3 kids and a dog, there she was playing confidently in the lounge. I knew immediately she would fit into our home. I call her my chemo kitty. I collected her the day my hair fell out.

5 months later at less than a year old, she went missing for 4 days. James went around the neighborhood putting up flyers and as he walked back into our house, Rosie trailed behind him as if to say, ‘I saw your signs; as if I could get lost, ha!’. He went back out and collected the posters. Or so he thought. One had been forgotten in the local shop.

That weekend while we were away the texts and pictures flowed in saying ‘Is this your cat?’ She had been in over 6 houses looking quite comfortable–at church, in the pub, on the counter in the post office. This is when we recognized her as the quintessential neighborhood cat. She soon took up a daily residence at the primary school, visiting classrooms, greeting kids on the playground, and sleeping in reception after walking in with Fred.

She still walks with us as much as she can, venturing to the duck pond and even to Starbucks. Ever the center of attention, she also likes to sit, purring, on clients while they have treatments in my therapy clinic. One of my regular clients happily says of Rosie’s cat biscuit-making, ‘it’s like kitty massage and acupuncture’.

Chana & Racket

In the late autumn of 2015 a picture of 4 fluffy gray kittens appeared on the Cat Protection website. This was a big deal as I had been looking for a fluffy gray furball for over a year.

My son, a world-class negotiator, had snuggled in with us one morning and began the conversation with, ‘So mummy, you like cats.’ This resulted in the agreement that I could get 2 more kittens if they could get an Xbox and a new TV. My guys clearly know my weak spot. Well, a year later and we have a gaming room no less! Yet, no new kittens.

I went into CP inquiring about the kittens to discover that they had been named after places in Thailand, including Kanchanaburi, where I had just returned from a week prior; if this wasn’t a classic example of serendipity, then I don’t know what is! In those days, it was first come, first serve. I camped in the car park from 7:30 for an 11 am opening on Jan 2 to bring home the little bundles of joy. Kanchanaburi and Ratchaburi (Chana and Racket) are polar opposites of siblings.

Racket, bless his heart, has a vacancy of mind. Apart from when he is winding up Rosie. He adores being brushed, getting excited every time I open the drawer. The dining table is his domain. Why he sleeps on this hard surface when the rest of the house is filled with blankets and cozy spots is beyond me. He is the one cat who refuses to remember the scratch post, looking at me defiantly while he shreds my sofa sides and dining chairs. I pick him up, put him on the post, and it’s like he says–’Oh, this is what it’s for?!’ Every time.

He has glorious long fur that becomes a magnet for anything he walks past. Leaves, twigs, slugs, he returns a walking bush. Unlike Kumo, who prides himself on good grooming practices–the way he sniffs his paw as if to say, ‘damn, I smell good!’–Racket has a cursory lick and flops into a snooze without bother.

His sister, on the other hand, is an absolute Princess! The look of disdain that crinkles her ears and comes across her face at anything dirty; toileting is a practice beneath her. She cannot bound away fast enough. This is doubly comical as she has Cerebellar Hypoplasia–she’s wobbly; ie, Chana Banana. We for a while switched our bed frame for pallets to make it easier for her; watching her fall on her head was agonizing.

She rarely climbs the stairs anymore but loves a lap snuggle and food time. She has taught herself to slide her belly onto the floor and hug her bowl while eating dry food instead of teetering like a baby giraffe. The way she pulls at my heartstrings is beyond words. Her wobbliness is even present while dreaming, though lessened, but really comes to a still when hunting. Her paw-eye coordination is shocking but hilarious.

She caught a mouse–once–and the pride in her step was undeniable. When I feel defeated by life, I think of Chana and she spurs a renewed tenacity in me. We are coming into leaf and bug hunting season when she also loves being out in the grass sunning herself. In fact, if I am outside, they are all in the garden with me, the occasion besides dinnertime that all gather in one place amicably.

Rosie often brings home her successful hunt and drops it in front of Chana as if to say, ‘that’s how it’s done, love’.

Kumo

We then come to Kumo–Japanese for cloud. AKA BoB. AKA Chunk. He is a Ragdoll who was brought into CP as a kitten with his mom and 3 brothers from a multi-cat breeder’s household riddled with ringworm.

I met him in his shaven, shaken state after his first solo night in Isolation. My goodness, was he chatty. And so scared. And who was I, this human dressed head to toe in noisy PPE?

With gentle coaxing and patience, he came out and soon laid out belly up, closed his big blue eyes, and trustingly fell asleep in my lap. I knew instantly he was coming home with me.

James and Fred both said, ‘but we already have 5!’ I planted myself in a spot where I could see their faces upon meeting him for the first time at CP. I knew instantly that they also knew instantly, despite them trying to cover up how much their hearts melted.

The only regular downside is how we playfully fight when arriving back home as to who gets first snuggles with him. The snuggling has to often wait though until he makes an appearance. He loves being outside and is an avid hunter. Summer is the season where I am frequently awakened by a frog squealing in the house. ‘Kumo!’, I mutter as I roll out of bed and pad out to the pond at 3 am to return the frog to its home. The frog, apart from possible terror, is always unharmed. Kumo just softly pokes at it as if wanting a playmate. Rats and flies are not so lucky.

He is still chatty. Announcing his arrival from across the street, he meows till well into the house. If it’s warm and all the doors are open he doesn’t stop meowing, as if to say, ‘Hi. Bye. Just checking in. Be back later.’

I would happily have another cat. And foxes. And a goat. And a sloth . . . I love finding connection with animals, the purity of the emotion, and discovering each of their personal idiosyncrasies. There is a selfish part of me who thinks that if a cat is not on my lap, then we still have space for more. That voice is drowned out by the voice of love, the one that sees that our house for the time being is full. Each cat, and human, has enough space and time to roam and be free, to be with each other or on our own.

This is why I love working with Wendy and My Three Cats, why I still volunteer with Cat Protection even though I stopped working there last year. Humans have taken up so much space in this world and I feel compelled to share my space with ones displaced.

Our feline friends bring so much joy to our lives–James just came down the stairs and, as I type this, announced, ‘there is a dead rodent under our bed.’ How fitting?! Joy, indeed and companionship, comfort, comedy. They are a mirror to our own wildness and independence. Our potential to be unapologetically authentic. Our humanity. I want to fully be present in that humanity. One feline at a time.

By Kimberly Knowles