How a Cat Teaches the Meaning of True Friendship

Cats can be great teachers about various things in life. My longtime friendship with an orange tabby named Alley taught me a few lessons about the meaning of true friendship. Here are four of them.

Someone always gives a damn about you. This is one of the biggest meanings of true friendship to me. There have been days in my life when I was depressed to the point of not wanting to move. Such a time was when I was unemployed for months and didn't think I'd find a job, and wasn't sure how I'd get through tomorrow. Alley would walk up to me and climb up on my lap. She'd get right in my face. "Meow?"; yes cats can ask questions. She never once failed to come say hello after I walked into the house. She would know when to come sit next to me because I felt alone. I still think she trained Jack, my tuxedo cat, to make sure I was up and moving each morning like she used to do before he came to live with us.

Show love and fix the most broken day. Cats are good for telling you the world isn't lost because they still love you. Even when I've had the worst broken day, Alley did, as Jack does now, made sure that at least once a day I knew they still gave a damn and the world would be fine as long as we all were still alive today. You would be surprised how a cat can tell you its going to be OK.

Pay attention to the living creatures around you. When I would spend my day living in my own world and not paying attention to anything else around me, others got ignored. Alley would remind me of another meaning of true friendship on days like this. If I was moving around haphazardly or spaced out she would figure out how to get in my way and make me stop; or she would walk past over and over issuing a loud meow each time until I said something. That meant I was paying attention to someone else besides me. These days I'll be busy on the computer, and sometimes get too deep into working. Jack will hop up on my lap and stick his paw in my face, and then stare at me until I stop to pet him. And if it feels as if I'm going to just be polite, he'll stick the paw in the face again and make me stop. And yes, he has learned, as Alley did, when I really do have work to do and not to bother me on those days. Another lesson about the true meaning of friendship.

Believe in the line that tells you "set it free and if it comes back it was meant to be". This is the best meaning of true friendship which I learned from Alley. This lesson comes from one of the stormiest parts of my life, literally. There was a flash flood in Upstate New York in 2006. We had only a few hours to get moved out of the way. I was pulling clothes and needed items together and actually tossing bags of stuff out the front door of a trailer into a waiting pickup truck. Alley got out of her carrier that I had planned to move her in, and ran out the front door. I panic, and spend the next hour trying to catch her. I ran out of time and was forced to leave her behind outside the trailer. Two weeks later I found my way back to the trailer by boat; it was surrounded on three sides by water. I left some open food containers and bowls of bottled water hoping she'd come back to eat. About 62 days later I finally was allowed to come home for good. The moment I walked into the house I heard a faint, sad meow. Alley was literally right behind me coming to see if it was me who was in our trailer. She was skinny as hell, and tired, but she had stayed near the trailer waiting for me to come back. I never forgot that devotion. True friendship can go through anything.

For anyone who has never been taught a lesson about anything from a cat, I would say you have never had a cat or haven't been paying attention.