A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him.
~William Lyon Phelps
I guess I was lonely. I was going to school and working full-time to pay for it. I had my own studio apartment, which meant no roommate drama, but I started to yearn for companionship.
On my birthday, I decided to get a puppy since I missed my childhood dog so much. I certainly couldn’t afford a purebred like the one I had when I was little, so I went to the local Humane Society. When I arrived that Saturday afternoon, it was a cacophony of sound with all shapes and manners of dogs demanding attention.
I spent thirty minutes walking among the dogs and finally talked myself out of one. I decided they were too big for a studio, and too young for me to take on housebreaking, considering my busy schedule.
Dejected, I was heading outside when I saw a small glass door I had not noticed before. There was a sign saying there more pets inside. I figured I could use a few more puppy kisses for the road and opened the door.
I ended up in the cattery. Walking up and down the rows, I saw dozens of sleeping and disinterested cats. They certainly weren’t moved by my presence; most barely flicked their tails in acknowledgment. But there was one who was different. Each time I passed his cage, he slapped a black-and-white speckled paw at me.
I wasn’t really there for a cat, but figured he should at least be rewarded with some affection for his persistence. I stopped on my next pass and rubbed behind his ears. His luminous, green eyes roved over my face. A volunteer saw an opportunity, opened the cage, and handed him to me. The black-and-white fur ball immediately broke into a purr louder than my blender. He proceeded to open his mouth and rub his teeth and gums all over my chin. It was a little wetter and smellier of a greeting than I expected, but it did the trick.
My new friend and I went home. He scoured my apartment with head bobs and slinky moves under the kitchen table. He peered into the toilet, watching the water swirl and dabbled his paws under the stream of water from the sink. He burrowed through the pillows on my bed and finally ended up napping on top of my desk while I worked on my computer, his head resting on the mouse. He followed me every time I moved, so I named him Shadow.
That first night after my lights went out, he promptly jumped on the bed, kneaded my shoulder a few times, and buried his nose in my hair as he curled up on me. He slept there every night for two years until I met my future husband and got married. My husband banished him from the bedroom. Seven years later, Shadow magically reappeared on my shoulder the first night after my divorce. He kneaded and snuggled in as I cried myself to sleep.
Shadow embedded himself in my life. When I was sick with a cold, he would give my shoulder a break. He would curl up between my legs, facing me, and open his eyes periodically to gaze on my face. When I took a government job and spent evenings with paperwork spread across the apartment floor, he would settle in on the least-needed piece of paper and watch with rapt attention. I would reward him periodically by running a pencil under his sheet of paper. The fluff on the back of his neck would puff up, and his eyes would dilate in excitement as he pounced repeatedly on the pencil.
He made friends for both of us when I was too shy to do so. I had gotten the notion in my head he might like to go outside. However, I didn’t want him to run off or get hurt, so I opted to try a cat leash. He took to it like a duck to water, eventually sitting very still by the door each time so I could buckle it around his little body. He walked regally outside around the apartment complex, pausing to crouch excitedly in the green grassy areas when a bird’s shadow would pass overhead. Neighbors were drawn to this curiosity — a cat on a leash — and I ended up meeting and befriending everyone in the complex because of Shadow.
When I adopted my daughter and placed her on the play mat among the toys, he would sit at the edge of the mat and watch her attentively. Occasionally, a ball would roll too close to him, and he would bat it back in play for her. At night, he would circle on the rug by her crib until she fell asleep.
Shadow took all the bumps of my life in stride. He rode quite calmly in the back window of my Chevrolet for the fourteen-hour move from Texas to Alabama. His head would bob at rest stops, taking in the sights. He rode just as quietly on the move back from Alabama to Texas ten years later when I left in defeat.
Like the stars, he was the one constant in my orbit for seventeen years. He was there through a marriage, a divorce, the adoption of my daughter, ten moves, my graduation from college, a layoff, three dogs, and the deaths of my grandfather and my sister. He saw many of the great moments, but he was the only one who saw all my worst moments — my tears, anger, embarrassment, loneliness, shame, sickness, and fear. He was there every day, rubbing his open mouth on my chin and purring like an engine.
I remember opening the blinds at the back door on his last day. A warm spot of sun appeared on the floor, and he pulled himself to it like so many times before. He curled up on his back briefly, those luminous green eyes taking me in for one last time. It’s a little bittersweet that my favorite Shadow faded out in the sun, and there’s been no one like him in my little orbit since — not canine, human, or feline.
~Angela M. Meek
