I’m going to go a little personal with this post. Nothing profound, don’t worry.
When I was about to turn 15, my parents divorced. We lived in a great apartment downtown: I went to school in the neighbourhood, all my friends were there, and until that point, I had never lived anywhere else. It’s been a really difficult time: long story short, my father didn’t agree to the divorce. He fought with all his power to keep everything as it was, being often very brutal. He ended up refusing to leave and keeping the apartment for himself. So my mum, my cat Freddy and I had to move to a new place, in a completely different neighbourhood.
I felt uprooted and robbed of my own home, even if the new apartment was wonderful and in a very hip place. But as much as I loved living there, it didn’t feel like home.
In this new apartment, we had a balcony Freddy used to hang out on: from there, he could access a roof he could use as an additional sunbathing spot. We thought he was safe out on the balcony/roof, but one day he disappeared.
We searched around and called his name for a week, but he was nowhere to be found. I was desperate and cried every day.
Since my parents’ divorce, I was very much on my own, and he was often my only company. Not to sound pathetic, but he was pretty much all that was left of my life, since my father kept everything. He meant home to me. And in those days without him, I felt lost.
But this story has a happy ending as, after seven long days, I found Freddy in the attic of our building, where he had probably been hiding the entire time. I could say lots of things about him, but not that he was brave! He also feared heights, so being in an attic where he could look down must have been terrifying to him. Only hunger convinced him to get out and respond to my calls.
Freddy and I continued to live together for another 16 years. Together, we changed four apartments, two neighbourhoods and three towns. Every apartment was chosen out of necessity. I hated all of them and felt at home only because he was there with me.
Those have been very rough sixteen years. Often, I kept it all together with the sole power provided by his purrs and his cuddles.
When Freddy died, I lived without cats for six months. He had been so important in my life, following me from childhood to adulthood, into new homes, new jobs, new towns, and all the tough and often unwanted transformations my life had, and he was always there, fluffily steady. A reassuring presence. Often the only one I could count on.
I couldn’t just go to the shelter and take another cat; I had to learn to move in all the emptiness he had left, learn to function in it.
After six months, the cat distribution system decided it was time, and while I was on vacation with my grandmother, I found Sabino. But this is a story for another post.
It is no coincidence I found my first cat after Freddy while I was with my granny. One of my first memories is of me with her cat Titti, a very feisty ginger we all adored. So when I found Sabino, it was like going full circle, and I never lived without cats after.
“A home without a cat — and a well-fed, well-petted and properly revered cat — may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?”
― Mark Twain
I now have a very homey home, but it wouldn’t be the same without my furry bandits.
They make me laugh, they keep me company, and they force me to function even when times are tough. I owe them very much.
Litters to clean and floors to vacuum are a good compromise for all the sense of home my cats provide. Not to mention the scratched sofas and chairs, the chewed pencils, the tossed vases, and the black trousers that will never be without a trace of fur. But who cares? My cats are my home.
