The cat enters the room while I’m scratching out some thoughts in my journal. She has some comments to make about how breakfast appears to be slow in arriving, then sets to licking her coat over by the door.
The sole survivor of our cat posse that surged to seven in 2007, she has seen us slowly turn into a dog home (not that we weren’t already) as her elders moved on one by one. If she misses her kind, she is philosophical about it, keeping to herself and touring the house on a regular basis.
It will be 15 years in July since she darted across the on-ramp to U.S. 41, igniting my protective instinct and letting me take her home, where we assured ourselves that seven cats was too many and we would find her another home, but we didn’t try that hard. The vet estimated she was 4 weeks old.
We named her Blackberry, but I initially wanted to call her E.T., because she seemed to be crying “Home! Home! Home! Home! Home!” as she looked around for, I presume, the family she had left behind. But she has become part of our family in the meantime.
She does not snuggle or sleep on our shoulders or any of the affectionate things her species has been known to do. She does love up the dogs, however, and licks the dirt out of their eyes on a regular basis. I don’t think we’ll get her a companion or replace her when the inevitable comes, but you never know. Another kitten may cross our paths someday.
