Okay, so Kiko
the Magnificent couldn’t actually talk—actually she rarely meowed—but that
little kitty communicated with me on a far more complex level. To show you what
I mean…
Once, I was
watching a movie with my husband, and got up, for apparently no reason. He asked,
“Where’re you going?”
The question
startled me. I wasn’t exactly sure. Without thinking, I replied, “The cat needs
some water.”
Then I headed
upstairs, almost trancelike (okay, maybe I exaggerate a bit about my zombie
state). There she sat. Patiently waiting
by her water bowl.
During the
seven wonderful years Kiko allowed me to live in her house, there were daily
incidents similar to the one above. I seemed to “know” I needed to move a
pillow off a chair because Kiko had decided to sit there instead of her usual
spot. A thought would pop in my head and I’d go get a blanket. Kiko would
snuggle beneath it, like she’d requested it. I’d stop writing and go remove that
tee shirt that had somehow ended up covering her food.
How else,
other than mental telepathy, could a cat learn to fetch? Yes, if I threw a toy
small enough for her to carry, she’d retrieve the item and bring it back to me.
Even more impressive, she liked to play hide-and-seek, always hiding before I
got to ten and always tagging me
before I found her. I didn’t teach her that game. I never
rewarded her with treats for behavior. Somehow, I just knew that’s what she
wanted to do.
So it was very
weird I didn’t know she was sick. I got
no sense of her disease, only noticing when she stopped eating. I know what you’re thinking. Cats are very
good at masking illness. Maybe, but that cat and I were synched—I should have
known. Our mental connection sometimes freaked my husband out.
But you see,
my husband was also very sick. Dying actually. I’m convinced my little kitty
wanted to spare me more pain. When I took her to the vet, she said Kiko wouldn’t
live more than a month. My cat stayed on this earth for another four months,
hanging in there to get me through a horrific time. She spent most of that time
in my lap, looking at me with those beautiful green eyes, projecting the same
thought: it will be all right.
A year later,
tears are welling in my eyes as I write this. But I’m also smiling. I can still sense Kiko. And she’s saying, “See.
It’s all right.”
