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Cat Saga: Part I This story has several chapters, which would tax me to write in one post, not to mention for people to read. Therefore, I am going to divide it into sections. Cat lovers, persevere! All of the events in this story are true, by the way, as unlikely as some of them may sound. One stormy October night about two and a half years ago, my tabby cat Chi (the one in my arms, in the photo) was steadily watching a mousehole in the corner by the patio door. Chi was the family cat who had been with us from the time my two boys were in elementary school. She was getting on, and was about twelve years old at the time of this story. Although she was the family cat, in terms of bonding, I was "the one". My oldest , home from university for Canadian thanksgiving the previous weekend, commented "Look, mom, Chi is letting me hold her!" Usually, only I could hold her, up on my shoulder, where she liked to ride. Chi's habit was to go out in the early evening, come in around ten for the night, and then wake me around dawn to go back out. I opened the door for her. She looked up from her mousehole watching. The night was warm, for October, the air damp, and the wind wild. It had been raining. The trees tossed and leaves flew in the autumn storm. She hesitated, then slipped away into the dark, as she had done almost every night for the past twelve years. At ten pm, when I called, she wasn't there. She wasn't there in the morning, sitting on the step where she always waited if she'd had a night out. However, I tried to be calm. I drove to school, taught for the day, and on the way home stopped at the grocery store that is closest to my home in this rural part of Nova Scotia. When I came out of the grocery store, I loaded my groceries into the car. As I drove away, I looked up. There was a rainbow in the sky. I knew then, without a doubt, that she was gone. It came to me, as surely as if the rainbow was a direct message. I burst into tears. I think for most people the connection between a rainbow and a cat, would be thin, at best. However, for me, there was a direct connection--and in the way that sometimes happen when things we love die, that connection continued over the next few days, as you will see. When I got home, no little tabby cat was waiting on the steps to greet me as she usually did, every night between five and six. I never saw her again. I recalled later that the day before, she had stretched out on my lap for a very long time, and put her little chin right down on my knee. I had sat there quietly, looking out over the inlet, feeling that grace that comes when one is united with a living creature. I wept at that moment in time, from the closeness and tenderness I experienced. Little did I know that the next day, I was to lose her. I wonder if somehow, in her cat way, she knew she was going. . . Of course, over the next few days I searched, and went through everything a cat owner would do, but Chi was a cat of habit. I knew in my heart of hearts that she was gone. To be continued. . . 
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