Animals and their humans

I had the best cat ever growing up.  She was the feistiest, most independent cat I've ever met, and while it might have annoyed my dad that the last place she wanted to be was curled up in someone's lap, I loved her strong spirit.  From the time we got her when I was in the 2nd grade, she and I were besties.

The two of us spent many a summer hour basking in the skylight sunspots in our family room; she would catnap and periodically adjust to make sure she had maximum exposure to the sun, while, next to her, I devoured a book as I gave her the appropriate belly and chin rubs that every well-groomed cat requires.  Though she was frequently engaged in trying to see what hideaways in the house she hadn't yet explored, when I was stressed or upset she would seem to always magically appear out of nowhere and rub up to me, asking to be petted.  She didn't care if I was uncool at school or had been made fun of or was stressed about a test — to her, I was always cool, and she was always my friend.  At night she often ran wildly around my bedroom, trying to claw, lure, and demolish imaginary mice from under my dresser and bed (or sometimes in my bed -- can't ignore those pesky imaginary mice hidden deep within the mattress).  Once tuckered out, she would hop up by my head, gaze at me with happy squinty eyes while she kneaded the blankets, and then curl up at my knees.  When I was away at college, my bedroom door stayed closed so my mom didn't have to search for and clean hairballs in my room, and over that time, not only did the bottom right corner of my door become covered solid with scratch marks, but the carpeting under the door became tattered and frayed from her persistent, frantic efforts to discover if I was somehow hiding away in my room without her.

I was heartbroken when she died, and the surest way to get me to cry today is still to show me a picture of her or get me talking about how she'd drink the drained tuna juice from the can whenever I had tunafish salad, and then she'd get her face really close to mine and purr with a "I'm the most beautiful, exotic, glamorous cat in the whole world” expression.  She was, of course, regally dismissive of the fact that she was filling my air space with her total tuna breath.

She is and always will be very much alive in my thoughts, and my fiancé, who got to know her a bit before she died, insists I have picked up many of her personality and bahavioral traits (hopefully not the tuna breath one.  Or the imaginary mouse one).

I say all this as preface to (and as an excuse to post) this beautiful story (which definitely made me tear up) about an autistic six-year-old girl and the incredibly empathetic therapy cat who has helped her find her voice:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3491674/Autistic-six-year-old-paints-cycles-SWIMS-tabby-feline-helped-voice.html

And because when else will I have an excuse to post a picture of her, here is the beautiful, strong-willed, regal, kind-souled Gem: