Blake’s Beats // How I Became a Cat Person (Part 2)
Raven
If you’ve lost someone or something dear to you, you know just how much of a senseless whirlwind the time between diagnosis and departure can feel like. I’ve been fortunate to not have experienced much loss in my life, so losing Ivory was especially difficult.
It rocked me. Plain and simple. In the way that only something so tragically cut short can rock you.
I had fallen in love then had my heart ripped from my chest after just 3 short years of companionship and true, honest connection. In the days, weeks, months and, if we’re being honest, years afterward, the mere sight of a cat welled my eyes with tears and dropped the bottom out from beneath my stomach. None of it made any sense.
I don’t believe in gods, so there was no cursing the heavens, no questioning of some conveniently constructed “master plan” to explain my grief. I was just really fucking sad and really fucking angry that something so terrible could have happened to something so sweet and innocent.
I’ve been fortunate to not have experienced much loss in my life, so losing Ivory was especially difficult.
Shortly after Ivory’s passing, through some sort of cosmic calibration, Katie and I received an incredibly well-timed and welcome bit of good news by way of an out-of-state job offer. This offer would kickstart one of our life’s greatest shared achievements: moving from Florida (a place neither of us wanted to be) to Asheville, North Carolina (a place both of us very much wanted to be).
Reaching such a rapturous high in the midst of such a despondent low practically gave us emotional whiplash. At the core of this joy, however, was the melancholic knowledge that we’d be making this move as a family of two, instead of three. While heading for greener pastures without our bossy little fur daughter was a pill especially hard to swallow, there was something undeniably cathartic about retreating 600 miles away from our trauma.
The apartment we moved into was tucked away atop a hill in the shadow of a nearby mountain; 10 minutes from anywhere you’d want to be, and literally down the street from an entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Rent was reasonable, the views were magnificent, and there was only one catch: no pets allowed.
Shortly after Ivory’s passing, through some sort of cosmic calibration, Katie and I received an incredibly well-timed and welcomed bit of good news by way of an out-of-state job offer.
What once would have been a dealbreaker now seemed like a fair compromise amid the myriad life changes happening around us. To start over in a new town with a new pet right off the bat seemed unwise, irresponsible even. Katie and I were content to build our lives up, pursue fulfilling careers, and assimilate with our local culture as a couple.
Not long after moving in, we learned that our new little neighborhood was home to several indoor/outdoor cats, some of which were not so little. It was clear that these cats had been here a while and were quite comfortable introducing themselves to their new neighbors.
Most of the cats came and went without much consideration or affection for us and the feeling was mostly mutual. That is until one particular younger cat from the bunch started coming around. There was something about this cat that felt much different from the others. She was a little more curious, a little more mysterious, and quite a bit sweeter than the others.
We named her “Raven” for her jet black coat and inquisitive eyes. She reminded us of Ivory, even though they were nothing alike. In retrospect, perhaps “Ebony” would have been a more fitting name. Her presence soothed us, helped to reintroduce the idea of a cat’s love back into our lives.
Raven meowed when she saw us arrive home from work and would even follow us up the stairs and into our apartment from time to time. We greeted her by name, scratched behind her ears, and occasionally fed her tuna to supplement her diet of whatever-it-was she ate out in the wild.
On one particularly frigid winter evening, Raven stayed the night in the warm comfort of our apartment and shared our bed. She was more comfortable in her outdoor environment, sure, but I think she truly appreciated our kindness.
Not long after moving in, we learned that our new little neighborhood was home to several indoor/outdoor cats, some of which were not so little.
This brief love affair continued for a couple of months and then one day she was gone. It was fairly routine for us to go several days or more than a week without seeing Raven around the neighborhood…perhaps she was simply spending more time inside with her actual family? A quick chat with our neighbors revealed that she hadn’t been home and that they too were unsure of her whereabouts. Raven was nowhere to be seen.
Ugh, not again…
I couldn’t even look at cat memes and had zero interest in the other neighborhood cats, yet something about Raven just felt right. We were never foolish enough to think we would somehow transition Raven into a full-time house cat when she wasn’t even our cat, to begin with, but her proximity to us was undoubtedly welcomed.
Maybe we were foolish to open our hearts so soon after losing Ivory, but it wasn’t like we were actively seeking a new cat to fill that void. Raven just kind of appeared out of nowhere and took us by surprise.
As more and more time passed by, our assumptions of Raven’s fate grew more and more morbid as we closed our hearts and minds to the thought that she was never coming back. It was easier to just try and forget her altogether.
Then, several weeks later after a long night out on the town, Katie and I noticed a jet black figure darting across the street in front of our car as we pulled into the neighborhood. “Could that have been…,” I muttered to myself in optimistic disbelief. We parked the car without a second thought, activated our phone flashlights, and went chasing after the figure in the night. Two bright, inquisitive yellow eyes shone back at us with even more intensity than the light beams.
It was Raven!
She was bigger and, judging by the way she quickly scaled a nearby tree, clearly adapting well to her mysterious new life. As it happened, there was a small abandoned shed near our neighborhood cluttered with rusted machinery and long-forgotten possessions. The surrounding forest was reclaiming this shed and with it, so too did Raven claim the shed as her own. Raven wasn’t gone, she had just gone rogue!
Most of the cats came and went without much consideration or affection for us and the feeling was mostly mutual. That is until one particular younger cat from the bunch started coming around.
We’d walk by the abandoned shed every so often to check-in. Sometimes Raven could be found meowing loudly in a dark corner, tucked away under a tarp, but more often than not she was gone. Likely scaling trees, hunting birds, and participating in other outdoorsy-cat activities.
With our worries soothed and our fears squashed, Katie and I were relieved knowing that Raven was happy and healthy out in the wild. It’s where she belonged. She didn’t need us and we didn’t need her, but we both played an invaluable part in each other’s lives.
We opened our home to Raven and showed her true tenderness. In return, Raven healed our hearts and paved the way for us to one day become cat owners yet again. Little did we know how soon that next adventure would come…
