Pretty Good Kitty

©2021 Jen Salt

June 18, 2023

Today’s post is more personal than usual despite not being about a person.

Unless you’ve known me for a long time – or unless you’re a cat owner – it’s hard to convey how much of a role my family’s cat has played in my life. Suffice it to say that Ash (short for Ashland) was like my adopted brother in his own feline way. My heart is now heavy as I must adapt to a world without him.

When I was eight years old, my doctor told me I could never own a cat because of a severe allergy. While another kid might have been right back to playing an hour later, I was devastated. I was, far and away, the “cat person” in my elementary school. All of my games, art projects, decor, toys, birthday parties, and little childhood songs and stories featured cats and my obsession with them. It was my first brush with the arbitrary limits that life can impose.

I settled for stuffed animals and occasional short visits to the adoption area of Petsmart. My friends were sympathetic, and my unfortunate allergy became part of the fabric of our lives. Then one evening in the summer before my senior year, I got a phone call that began, “Do you want a cat?”. Two of my friends had found a cat wandering in a parking lot and were hesitant to leave her alone. My family happened to live less than a block away.

What started out as one night would stretch into a few weeks while we looked for her owners. When we failed to find them, we realized we were the owners. By that time, I had gotten used to her particular brand of fur and my allergic reaction had stopped.

Ash quickly established himself (once a vet corrected us on his sex) as an escape artist, a social butterfly, and a devoted brother who would sit outside my bedroom door waiting for me to wake up for school. He destroyed carpets and furniture with a passion, but he was litter-trained. By the time I left for college, he was a fully fledged member of our family. He sent me off with a bite on the wrist.

Family lore holds that this handsome black tomcat was the reincarnation of Smokey, a handsome black Labradoodle who kept my dad company in his childhood. Dad was a dog person, so it was surprising how deep and lasting a connection he developed with Ash. The two were inseparable at the end of Dad’s own life.

Ash would have been 13 years old this month. We were still waiting for his personality to mellow out; he was a pretty good kitty with the emphasis on pretty. I’m not going to share how he died, but it was fairly abrupt. I will need more time before the “is” in my head changes to “was.” I look forward to meeting his next incarnation, and I hope it’s soon.