I ONCE lived in a nice little home with a loving family, the children always cuddling and petting me. As a calico kitten, they said I was very cute. As I grew older, I made friends with the neighbour’s dog, Brutus, and cat, Ebony. We often played in the garden, and I was happy and contented, but then something terrible happened. My dad left, saying he would never return, and my distraught mom had to go to work and was out all day.

She always came home tired and stressed, sometimes forgetting to feed me, and when I meowed to remind her, she got angry and yelled at me. She often scolded the two little children, causing them to cry, and it made me sad that she had changed from a loving mother to someone harsh and irritable.

Time passed, and Dad came sometimes to pick up the children for the weekend, which always caused a fight. I would hide under the cherry trees until they had quietened down.

I don’t know why Dad left because I am just a cat, but I know I did not like the new man who came to live in the home. From day one, he said he didn’t like cats. A few days later, my warm bed and food bowl were put outside on the porch. Mother did not object, and that made me even sadder. I wondered, as I lay there in the chilly night, “Does she not love me anymore?”

The children sneaked me into their room when the man wasn’t home, but one night he caught them, and they screamed at him to leave me alone. The man growled in a low tone that I would have to go, and at the time, I did not understand what that meant.

Then, one late night, when Mother was asleep, and the children were with their father, he picked me up from the porch and drove a long distance. I did not know what was happening and felt scared, crying for the children to save me. The car drove into a very quiet place and, stopping, he took me out.

“No,” I cried, struggling, but with an evil grin on his face, he threw me down on a grassy parapet and drove away. I stayed there, my little heart thumping in my chest, and I cried, “Where am I? I want to go home.”

Moments later, I heard dogs barking, and I ran, jumping over a drain into a field. The grass was thick, which was a good thing because it hid me, but the barking dogs did not come closer. I raised my head to peer above the grass, trembling and frightened.

“Where am I?”

There were big houses and lights all around, but I saw no one who could help a poor, abandoned kitty.

It started to drizzle, and I walked unsteadily through the thick grass to a small shed, where I curled up, hungry and alone.

Morning came with the sound of birds in the field, but I was too weak and unhappy to chase after them. I stayed under the shed for a long time, then decided to walk, hoping to see someone familiar. I rested under the shade of trees when my legs got tired until I reached a house at the end of the field where there were some people, and I meowed weakly until someone saw me and exclaimed, “Hey, look, it’s a stray cat.”

I was given some food, but the lady said, “We can’t keep you because I don’t want cats in the house.”

The little hope I had was dashed away, and I stayed cuddled under a bench outside in the yard. I fell asleep and was awakened by children’s voices. There was a children’s play area nearby with swings and slides, where some children were playing.

I came out from under the bench, and it was a while before I was noticed.

A little girl squealed, “Kitty!”

The children stopped playing and surrounded me, wanting to know where I came from. They liked me and stroked my fur, but none of the adults wanted to take me home with them. One little girl, who lived close by, insisted she wanted to keep me, and the mother reluctantly agreed. I was given a box on the porch to sleep in and a bowl of food that gave me some comfort. I slept but awoke at different times during the night, thinking of my family.

“Are they missing me? Will I ever see them again?”

In the days that followed, the little girl and her friends played with me, and that helped to soften the grief in my heart, but then the family went away on vacation and I was alone again.

A kind neighbour brought food in the morning and afternoon, which he pushed through the gate. I stayed on the porch, but there was nowhere else to go. Many days passed, and I wondered if the family with the little girl was coming back. It was so quiet and lonely, so I decided to walk around the community looking for what was missing from my life: love, warmth, laughter and cuddles. I did not find it anywhere because no one seemed to care about a wandering cat, except for the kind man. Every time I wandered away, he searched for me and brought me back to the house.

Then, one morning, as I was coming back from one of the streets, I saw the kind man talking to the lady next door. I knew he was probably telling her he couldn’t find me. At that moment, the lady spotted me and said, “Hello, sweetie, how are you?”

The sound of her voice, a beautiful, gentle tone, lifted my low spirits, and I asked myself, “Is she the one to fill my life with what’s missing?”

She took the food from the man and called me to eat, speaking to me in a loving tone. She didn’t take me with her because the man took me back to the house with the porch, for it was that family who had rescued me, but who hadn’t yet returned. When the man left, I walked over to the lady’s house next door and climbed through the fence, but her two dogs barked at me, scaring me.

She came out and cautioned them, “Hey, stop that!” and to me she said, “Go back to the house, sweetie, I will feed you later.”

I came out in the afternoon, and she gave me food, then lifted me into her arms and hugged me, saying,

“She’s so little and soft.”

Her two dogs, standing at the gate, looked on disapprovingly, and she said to them,

“Look, guys, you have a new friend.”

They barked, unwilling to accept me, but I persisted in trying to jump over the fence. The big dog was more unaccepting than the smaller one until the lady scolded him.

“Stop that, be nice. Remember when you were on the streets too and I took you in?”

He walked away to the front of the house, most likely understanding what she had said to him, and she picked me up.

“What’s wrong, sweetie? You don’t want to stay alone over there?”

I meowed in a desperate kind of way and she laughed.

“Okay, you can stay with us.”

And that’s how I found the forever home I wanted, with a loving, caring family, warmth and laughter.

I know I will always be safe because the lady was an animal lover who often rescued strays.

My little heart no longer grieved, for it was filled with happiness, and, of course, the two dogs and I became friends.