Okay, since I’m already crying here, I guess it’s a good time to tell you guys about my elderly neighbour and his cat. So this man lives next door to my parents, okay, and he was a recent widower, so when his beloved cat died only a few months after his wife, we were all sort of worried - you know how it is, men are generally bad at being alone, and this guy had no relatives, his wife and he had been inseparable, and now the cat (God, why is life such a shitstorm of hurt all the time) - so when he knocked on our door and asked for help with finding another cat, on the whole we were sort of happy about it? We hoped he’d have some company, a way to better cope with his grief? Only the problem was, his wife had been absolutely in love with black cats, and all their lives, they’d only had black cats, one after the other, and the only black cat our local shelter had - well - he wasn’t up for adoption, because he was aggressive and violent and very bad-tempered.
(As you may have guessed, his former owner used to beat him, and people like that - honestly - what kind of redemption can you find if you’re the kind of person who enjoys hurting a pet?)
They tried talking the man into adopting another cat, but he was adamant - he had to have the black one, and since the shelter wouldn’t give in (they were afraid the cat would hurt him, because he was really feral), this incredible thing happened - the guy started to walk to the shelter every day and sit with the cat for two hours (two hours a day, for about three months) - our local shelter is basically three rooms, okay, and this cat had chosen the smallest one for himself and refused to come out, so the man would walk in, sit down on the only chair, and just - talk out loud. Sometimes he would read the newspaper at the cat, drawing his attention to unremarkable local events, and sometimes he would just chat - the staff told me they heard him reminiscing about his wife, his childhood, how the town used to be - all sort of things. He never tried to pet the cat or anything - he just talked. After a few weeks, he started to bring treats - little morsels of meat he’d saved from his own lunch - and he would just leave them there, in the space between them. And the cat - at first, he would stay on top of a bookcase, glaring down at the man from his basket; then he started to come down, after the man had gone, to chew on the bits of sausages and roast chicken that had been left for him; next he took to waiting for the man on the bench in front of the chair; and a couple of weeks later, he willingly walked into a cat carrier, and went home with him.
I’ve seen him around the neighbourhood a few times since - he normally stays in his own garden, or peers out from behind the curtains: a black, fluffy mass with golden eyes. As for my neighbour - he’s doing better. There is a line all around his mouth, a thing of grief and loss, and that’s never going away, but he smiles and chats with my parents, brings them pears when it’s the right season, always feigns an old-timey, overly polite surprise when my mother gives them back as pie. And, well - I don’t know if there’s a lesson here, because life’s too messy for that, so just - maybe let’s simply be kinder to one another. More patience, more heart - that seems to be the only solution to everything.
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