You can always tell if there are cats living in a home. The signs are clear. There are all the toys, for one thing: the rubber bird, the rolled-up tin foil, the golf balls, scattered around the rooms to be stepped on in the night, or hiding under the sofa just out of reaching range. The bed is usually oddly made, because a cat planted itself right in the middle, so the human arranged the bedspread respectfully around it. (Of course the cat left immediately afterward.) And there's always at least one chair with a cat-shaped indentation on a favorite blanket. This is a house blessed with cats.
You'll note that I don't say a "cat owner lives there". Really, no one owns a cat. They choose you.
I suppose that's why some people aren't "cat people" and view them even with suspicion. They can seem aloof. They live life on their own terms, and decide in their own good time whether to give you their affection. You can call them all day, but they'll only come if they're curious what you're up to or hear you putting food in their bowl.
But when a cat approaches you and rubs against you, tail high and quivering at the tip, they are giving you their greatest honor: their trust.
I've always had a cat or two sharing the road with me as I've made my way through life. In my childhood it was Pip, a loving black mother cat with shining yellow eyes. Those were the days before we spayed our cats, and she had several families. We'd find her in the linen closet or curled on a basket of freshly washed clothes, nursing a squirming family. Later there was Sam, mellow and curious. In my first week at college an enterprising pet owner brought his family of weaned kittens to our college dorm, and Tuffy became the first cat to be my own. She was with me for years, through college and student teaching. Oh, my, all the cats over the years.
These days when I come home at the end of the day I'm greeted by two cats. There's Phoebe, our tortoiseshell cat with the big green eyes, her coat a map of flecks of black and tan. She's the kind of cat who claims her attention gently. You'll sit down to read and she'll walk over oh, so carefully, to insinuate herself onto your lap. Put that book down. You need to pay attention to me, she says, and she arranges herself on your chest, tickling your chin with her whiskers and casually draping one slim paw over your shoulder.
Then there's Amber, a big orange tabby, gentle, shy and light on her feet. Every morning she bumps through the door to demand her daily brushing and lays down like an orange lump in the middle of the bed, tail lazily flicking, rolling on her back to knead the air in ecstasy when you brush her.
It seems so unfair, that we always have to let them go in the end.
Those goodbyes are so hard; the sudden illness, the long slide of aging, the gentle letting go at the hands of a vet. Whether a long goodbye or a wrenching sudden one, there's an aching absence when they're gone. An empty food bowl, a toy under the sofa, a cat-shaped indentation on the chair, and a cat-shaped hole in our hearts.
Cats: capricious, haughty, quirky, curious, mischievous, loving; every one unique and precious. Cats, giving us, on their terms, their love and trust.
I hope there's a room somewhere with all the cats that have been part of my life and owned my heart. I hope someday, when my time comes, God gives me a key, and I'll open that door, and there they'll all be, curled on chairs and perched regally on shelves. They'll all turn to me, alert, ears up, tails high. Misha, my silver tabby, will be sitting calmly on a shelf with his big paws draped over the edge, and he'll stand and stretch and greet me with a welcoming "murrp". Pip will blink at me lazily with her lovely yellow eyes and go back to licking her squirming family of kittens. Snickers will pause from grooming his magnificent coat and trot up to rub against my leg. Tuffy and Jab and Kitkat and Sam - they'll all be there.
But for now I need to set this aside. Phoebe has just walked up and said, put that down now. So I'll set this down and pat my lap, and she'll nestle close, and her purrs will fill the room with peace.
But first I need to wipe my eyes.
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