Losing Dolly at the begin­ning of the year was absolute­ly dev­as­tat­ing. However, I was also buoyed by the fact that we sud­den­ly had space for a new cat in the house. What bet­ter way to help me through the mourn­ing process than to have a new life keep­ing me com­pa­ny while Heather’s at work? And since her dream was always to have an orange tab­by, I set about find­ing her the per­fect kit­ten from the Humane Society back in January.

I thought he was still teething, but it turns out he just real­ly likes chew­ing things. Also, sleep­ing in box­es.

Kittens tend to go with­in a few hours of being put up for adop­tion, so at one point I was check­ing the web­site every hour for avail­able can­di­dates. When there hap­pened to be a tiny male tab­by at 14 weeks old on the oth­er side of town, I drove over imme­di­ate­ly and found him in a cage sleep­ing with his sis­ter (a beau­ti­ful lit­tle cal­i­co). It broke my heart to split them up, but I also knew she’d soon be snatched up her­self.

We set­tled on the name Percy, after Tiana’s cat who recent­ly passed away¹. His mid­dle names are Leopold and Byron, after his gold­en doo­dle and feline broth­ers respec­tive­ly.

It was amaz­ing to dis­cov­er how much per­son­al­i­ty was already in this lit­tle orange bun­dle of fur, even though he had been alive only a few weeks. As her first kit­ten, Heather’s had the chance to expe­ri­ence the mag­ic of ear­ly child­hood, like the way he learns the lim­its of his body (by hav­ing some spec­tac­u­lar falls), and the loss of his inno­cence².

Certainly the most endear­ing habit he’s devel­oped is hop­ping into my lap and groom­ing me when he feels like hav­ing a rub. His dry lit­tle tongue is rough as sand­pa­per, but I can’t resist giv­ing him a spot to lick when think­ing of myself as a per­son he cares about so much.

Now he’s approach­ing adult­hood, and has yet to out­grow his youth­ful mis­chie­vous­ness. Especially dif­fi­cult to deal with has been his chew­ing issues. I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I’ll nev­er be able to keep cable mount­ed to my floor­board, cause he keeps pulling out the sta­ples to use as toys.

The king of the jun­gle sleeps among his spoils.

Nine months lat­er and we’re still griev­ing over Dolly. Some days, I wake up grog­gy and have the urge to cud­dle with my favourite cat. Then I real­ize she’s gone for­ev­er and I turn into blub­ber­ing mess. Even though Percy is no replace­ment, he helps fill the hole she left.

Our plan is even­tu­al­ly to have three cats, but for now we’re bask­ing in the glo­ry that is a new kit­ten. A tiny lit­tle spir­it who buoys our own.

1. Percy was a spe­cial cat who once pro­tect­ed me from a moody lit­tle chi­huahua who was about to bite me, by using a vicious series of swipes. [↩]
2. During his first vis­it to the vet, he was com­plete­ly fear­less; like­ly at an age where he still had full kit­ten trust, cause he would still be tak­en care of by his moth­er. [↩]