The Compassion of Cats Part 2

After my previous article regarding whether cats feel compassion, I'll now relate to you some of my personal experiences. I've had many cats over the years, and they were, and are, all remarkable in their own way.

My first cat, Whisky, was about a year older than me, and had been in the Rance family as a kitten. Near the end of his life he brought back an old unneutered black tomcat, and stood back in the kitchen, indicating he wanted my Mother to feed his disheveled friend. Whisky was a well looked after, doctored tomcat, and so he and his new pal were not really obvious companions. After Whisky died, the old black tomcat came looking for him, and then we never saw him again. Maybe Whisky was bringing the old tomcat round as a replacement, knowing he had only a short time left on this Earth.

Our second cat, Lucky, was a feisty, independent female cat, who suddenly changed, hollering at us to go out with her, which she did about an hour before she was killed by a car. Did she foresee her own death?

Lucy was our third feline, and when our Boxer dog Dano died, she pretty much disappeared for three days, and ran around his grave, as if he was still chasing her as in life. I've no doubt that she was grieving. My Father was with her when she was slipping away at the grand old age of 17, but she was still alive when I woke up, thus still giving me the chance to see her before she died 10 minutes later.

We adopted two strays, Tabs and Torty. When Tabs was dying he gave Torty a goodbye bump, and Torty, herself, grieved for my Father so much that I'm convinced her death six months after his was related. She would look at his empty chair, bemused.

In recent years, my Mother and I took on a new family of felines. Tragic Chloe was run over, and, like Lucky, acted strangely, and was restless on the day of her death. I believe cats sense something bad is going to happen to them in these cases, but they're not quite sure what. Lion King and Apricot just looked at me in a set, sweet way before illness took them away. Both were badly affected by Chloe's death, and Apricot wouldn't go in the room that Apricot had last seen her in. As supernatural as any of these events, Snooky Ookums, who died in October 2009, missed his pal Apricot so much that he lay by her grave every day for weeks after her death. It was a spot in the garden that he hadn't laid in before. One day I heard him hollering in the hall, which was strange. Just over a week later, he came in for his meal, gave me a knowing look, and the next morning I found him dead under the conifer tree. How he died is still a mystery. It was near the drive, so did he just give up?

The day after Apricot died, one of our remaining cats, Sparkle, meowed loudly at me. I went up to her, and she led me round to the kitchen, and she looked at me, as if to say: "Where is she?" After seeing Snooky dead, Sparkle kissed him full on the lips, and our other remaining cat, Gremlin, licked Snooky's ears. Sparkle had acted strangely the last day I had seen Snooky alive.

I sympathize with everyone who has lost a loved one - human or animal, and there are a lot of things which are beyond our knowledge. I think we'll all see our loved ones again - otherwise, for those who have a life of eternal suffering, what would be the point of it all? It is believed, by many experts, that cats, animals generally, and small children are more tuned into ESP than adult humans, but can't elucidate. Which is just as well, as life would be boring if we knew EVERYTHING. We all came from stardust, and never truly die (Thanks Larry for the reminder!).