Why We Loved this Cat

Tiger arrived at our front door, literally, on Feb. 18, 2008. I came home from work that day very surprised -- and secretly delighted -- to see a scruffy kitten with a small cut on its left eye huddled in the corner beside our doorway.  It had made the effort of walking all the way from our front gate to our door, seeking shelter from the rain that day. To a kitten, I could imagine that it might've been the longest walk it had ever taken. But what amazed me the most, which still puzzles me to this day, is why Tiger chose to enter our home -- among all the other homes on our street -- that day. I could only attribute it really to a divine intervention. In the months that followed, it became clear that this cat was sent especially to our home.

At the time, we were living in a very old house. More than half a century old, it had undergone dozens of repairs and renovations, but its inner parts were crumbling away due to the inevitable pests that had chosen to grow their huge families within. You know the kind -- rats, roaches, termites, ants, and God knows what else. We had tried many ways to get rid of them but little did we know that all it would take was a cat.

Within a few months of having Tiger around, we began noticing that the unwanted tenants were keeping away from their usual haunts around our home. Roaches began turning up all over the place upside down. Not shredded or broken, just...dead. A few months more and the same happened to small rats as well.  We eventually learned that it was all Tiger's handiwork. Being naturally drawn to tiny jittery things that could be chased down, the cat had taken to running after these critters and played with them by tossing them to and fro. He would pounce on them excitedly if they got away from his furry little paws. In short, his playthings simply died of a heart attack.

But, so much more than being our pest-killer, Tiger slowly became what my husband would call "the family beast".  We gradually turned into cat lovers (from being formerly drawn to dogs and rabbits). After Tiger, we later adopted 3 more "pusakals" -- or "puspins", as P.A.W.S. prefers to call them :) We began to appreciate how easy it was to take care of cats. They are very low-maintenance pets; they can look after themselves.  It took all of 2 days to teach each of them to use the kitty litter. They don't smell, their appetites are easily sated, they're quite predictable, and they're not demanding.

Now, those are basic textbook stuff you'll learn about cats. But with Tiger, some things came as a surprise.

He would greet us at the door when we come in.
He would walk with us to the door when we're about to leave (sometimes even try to go out with us!).
He knew that after a jog, I would take him out for a short walk near our home. I didn't need to put a leash on him, he would just follow me. If ever he felt scared or unsure, he would get assurance from me that it was OK to keep walking.
He loved sleeping at my feet, especially if I leaned my foot against him. If I didn't, he would lean against my foot or leg instead.
He could be awakened with soft calls of his name.
He loved having his belly rubbed. He would even fully expose his belly to me and place one of his legs over my hand.

He knew if I wasn't feeling well. He would sleep beside me or call my attention and regard me curiously before curling up against my bedroom door, like a protective guard.
He also knew which part of me wasn't OK. Like after my second surgery to have implants removed from my left leg, as I recovered at home from the procedure, Tiger stayed in my room (except when he had to go out to eat or to use the litter) and sat beside my leg.
He was jealously territorial when it came to me. If my husband wasn't home yet, Tiger would sleep on my husband's side of the bed and would be royally annoyed when shooed away. He would usually just move to my feet, but not before casting a sideway glare at my husband.

I remember the time when we moved to our new home (where we live now), and we had decided to have a neighbor adopt Tiger instead because we weren't sure about continuing to keep pets in the new place. But just after a day in our new place, we all began to miss Tiger, so my husband and I drove all the way back to our old neighborhood and picked him up. The night before, our neighbor was texting me about how Tiger kept crying the whole day and night. But after she told him that we were coming back to get him, she noticed that he stopped mewling and stayed guard at the window, as if waiting for us to arrive. The next afternoon, after she deposited him into my arms, I really felt Tiger's weight drop onto me (photo on the left), as if he felt a great relief to be with his family again. When we brought him into the new home, he was very energetic and visibly happy. That was 4 years ago.

Tiger passed away around 11:30 P.M. on Oct. 27, 2012. I was right beside him in the animal clinic when he breathed his last. As sudden and unexpected his arrival was, so was his departure from our family. I guess that you could say he had already served his purpose. It will take a long while for us to recover from his absence. Maybe we'll never do. And maybe that's not a bad thing at all.