A Tale of Two Kitties
Posted on September 24th, 2021
[Content warning: Pet loss]
Over nineteen years ago, I brought home an extremely cute and almost comically assertive five-month-old kitten. I’ll never forget how the little one introduced herself: she meowed for my attention and put her paw on my fingers when I reached through the cage bars. How could I say no? But I really found out what I was in for while we were in the waiting area and she saw a rather large German shepherd. This little bitty kitty girl, for whatever reason, started hissing at a creature many times her size. Luckily, the dog ignored her, but that’s pretty much who she was.
I named that kitten Casey. She became my little buddy who cuddled with me, commandeered my food, watched movies with me, freely yelled at me whenever she wanted or needed literally anything, terrorized the vet, and liked to be tucked in next to me at night. Casey was endless entertainment and kept me on my toes. She was also (at least with me) the snuggliest, most fiercely loving thing you could ever hope to encounter, especially in her old age.
I lost Casey to kidney disease in May of this year. It wasn’t exactly a shock since she had been sick for some time, but I’d be lying if I said I was ready to let her go. It took me a good week before I stopped crying every day. It took me about 1-2 weeks more to donate her canned food and the pet stairs she used to climb into my bed to the animal shelter. It took still more time after that to feel like I simply missed having a cat and that I could accept it if that cat wasn’t Casey.
This progressed to looking at pictures of adoptable cats. I wasn’t ready for a new fuzzy friend just yet, but I was ready to think about it. So I looked one day, and the next, and the next and then… I saw a black cat named Lark who was about a year-and-a-half old. There was something in her eyes that made me keep going back to her until I finally said, “Okay. If this cat is still available on X date, I want to visit her.” When I checked, she was.
I still wasn’t sure I was ready to adopt, but as soon as I saw Lark in person, my doubts evaporated. She was a very quiet cat, but when I bent down to say hello, she rolled onto her back for pets and promptly started purring. I brought her home the next day and renamed her Megaera. That happened in June.
I was worried on some level about “replacing” Casey, but Megaera is so wildly different that that was never a danger. Meg is quiet, patient, does her own thing (though she does love to play!), and sometimes makes me question if she’s really even a cat. For example, if I tell her, “Please don’t bother me while I’m doing X thing,” she’ll either leave the room or watch from a respectful distance. She’s also shown no interest in eating my food or waking me up while I’m sleeping and she’s even nice to the vet. And while Meg isn’t a cuddler, she does like hanging around me and solicits affection when she wants it, generally by rolling around and/or just being adorable. Casey was a fun action comedy, complete with hot buttered popcorn; Meg is a good book and coffee made just right.
Casey was the best cat in the world. And somehow, Meg is, too.
