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An ordinary cat.

My name is Poppy. I spent most of my life in a plant nursery, then the last nine months in a rather nice bungalow, in a quiet residential area.

To those who dislike, or are indifferent to animals, I suppose I was just an ordinary cat. As for my keepers getting upset at my passing, some of you would tell them to get a life.

Like a few people in ‘third world’ and so-called ‘developed’ countries, I never knew my birthday. I know my keepers would have celebrated it had they known, because they loved me dearly.

I loved my keepers, and despite the odd spat with my three feline siblings, I loved them too. Without stress and absorbing human traits, unconditional love is our nature.

Jimmy came with me from the plant nursery, and despite the fact he has his own web site [www.acatnamedjimmy.com], spreading messages of spirituality, he is more human than cat. He struggles to accept affection, is always wary, and is obsessed with eating. He had it really rough for few years, when he just about survived in the wild, eating mice, birds and rabbits.

Jimmy lives his life keeping cats and people at a distance, just in case he gets hurt again. Very occasionally-you can see it on his face-he forgets his programming and plays without a care in the world. A leaf, some cotton, he doesn’t mind. He lives for the moment, just like young children, and all animals who are free from abuse and suffering.

He is physically a big cat, and of course the reaction from others has contributed to his thinking too. He can look a bit fierce. Unless attuned to what goes behind conditioning and appearance, problems occur. In the past, he used to get his retaliation in first.

His transformation from woodland bruiser to spiritual sage has been nothing short of miraculous.

And Milo, my sister. My keepers got her from an animal shelter, after her first keepers decided she was a potential threat to their new baby. I suspect the baby’s mother was either allergic to cats, or witnessed an incident involving a baby and cat when she was young. Or she may just have listened to someone ignorant.

Milo would hide away from life. When stressed, she would often get under a blanket, or hide in a cupboard. Being rejected as a kitten, any trip in a car would render her physically sick. If Milo sits on my keepers knees, and they get up before she does, she objects loudly. Hates her routine being disrupted. She is always last to the food dish, and wary of the others. Having had her security taken from her once, she fears it will happen again. Just like Jimmy, she is scared; unlike him, her fears are triggered differently. She is on the small side, very pretty and timid. A clinically clean bluebottle inoculated against MRSA and C Difficile would pose a greater threat to a baby then Milo.

She is still the worst of us when it comes to killing mice though. She will spend hours watching a nearby nest, and dead mice appear on the lawn with sickening frequency.

‘Nature raw in tooth and claw’ is the mind-set of just about every ‘wildlife’ programme your television shows. Of course there is a food chain, a relatively intact one in the oceans. And as if you didn’t know, the only enemies the larger fish and mammals have are you humans.

On land, it is a different story. The millions of farm animals are protected from or live in areas where there are no predators.

I wonder what it does for your kids to be brought up on a diet of savagery and gore, presented ever so well by a ‘British Icon’ like Sir David Attenborough?

And so to Harry. Like me, his origins are a little vague. I know my keepers were holidaying in Crete, and every night they went out for a drink at the local taverna. And a little white cat would come over to their table and stay with them until they left. One of my keepers was serious about bringing the cat home to England. I know she wouldn’t have done it, because the cat could have been a Greek child’s pet.

However the memory never left them, and they often would talk about the little cat, and how he ‘nearly’ came back with them.

A month after the holiday, a little white cat ran out from under a caravan about 200 yards from their home in England. He ran ahead of them, and ended up on their door step. They let him in. Worried they had taken someone’s cat, they advertised Harry in the local ‘lost and found.’ No one called.

Harry is a very loving cat with loud purr. He is the mainstay on a CD of cat purrs and relaxing music [www.purrfectsymphony.com]. Not much scares him, except men in dark anoraks, loud noises and disruption to his home life. Harry decided at a very early age to get his own home, one he had chosen. Whether that was because a man in a dark anorak had thrown him out of his first home isn’t known.

He likes to play mind games with Jimmy. Neither of them will back off when they occasionally square up to each other. So, for Harry it is always about territory, in rooms, on the bed, on chairs, in the garden. He will waste a fair amount of his waking hours needlessly playing silly games. Oh, and is he greedy! Eats much more than he needs.

My other sister died recently, Ch’Bee. As an all black kitten with piercing blue eyes, she was abandoned in a box on a friend’s doorstep. She was taken to my keepers, who didn’t want her at first, as they had three other cats. They relented. Her original name was Isis, a female Egyptian Goddess.

Totally self-assured, she was the boss of four successive homes. Her presence gave off an air of security, calm and strength. All this from a 15” long, 3kg animal. Another star of ‘Purrfect Symphony.’

My keepers spent nearly two years in hell, disguised as paradise. It put massive strains on their relationship and their health. They were conned and persecuted by the people they bought off [my former feeders], had a totally incompetent solicitor, had to manage two devious and manipulative staff, and much worse.

The area I spent most of my life in had a history of suicides, death and despair. For those of you who have woken up to the reality of energies, the house and its surroundings were amidst dense, negative, low vibrations.

Not long after my keepers moved there, Ch’Bee developed a stomach tumour. Another enlightened human, an animal psychic, told my keepers that Ch’Bee had absorbed energies in the house and garden to protect them.

The vet had said that unless she was operated on, she would die with a month. She lived, albeit with swollen stomach for 15 months longer, and died peacefully in her sleep.

And me?

The people at the nursery who fed me had two aggressive, occasionally vicious, noisy dogs. Dogs are more like their owners than cats. I was never let in the house, and spent winters in the garage. My dry, cheap food was often stolen by next door’s cat, Max. However, the nursery staff would sometimes spoil me, and make sure I was fed and looked after.

It was good in summer. Visitors to the nursery and gardens would stroke and fuss me. At times I was a celebrity, when the noisy dogs weren’t doing their thing.

I like to think the extremes of neglect and attention didn’t change me at all. And of course, there are thousands of my siblings all over the world who would have changed places in an instant.

But there’s only so much stress a being can take. The nursery owner hit me a few times, so much so that I developed a reflex reaction to anyone touching the back of my neck. I would lash out and claw them, sometimes drawing blood. This made me a liability sometimes with customers. And of course the person who did this to me, acted as if butter wouldn’t melt.

Eventually my keepers got out, and sold the nursery to ideal people to run it. Would Jimmy and I wander off when we moved? Do cats like fish?

I’ve spent the last two winters inside, and have never stopped purring. My health started to deteriorate about 18 months ago, but my life changed so much, and I had so much to be grateful for, I kept going.

Why did I answer the Great Cat’s call? Well my thyroid was over-active, and the vet gave me some tablets. Again those amongst you who look beyond the obvious will know thyroid problems are rooted in lack of love for self. We animals are no different to you. We have to be taught to love ourselves by example. I didn’t get a role model. I have hated winter all my life, and part of me knows I will never suffer the cold again, but a recent trip to a cattery pressed a few buttons.

You see I have also absorbed many human traits. Having been deprived of love for so long, it having been a struggle to eat, having or only getting peace now and then, getting it all so late in life did on occasions fill me with regret.

Ch’Bee was a role model. Perhaps she was blessed with inner strength, but only in the last part of her life did she have to really use it. She would have used for as long as it would have taken.

Harry can be very child or kitten-like, and only takes life seriously when he has to eat, or avoid men in dark anoraks.

Milo has become less afraid, maybe she can grow and become a second Ch’Bee. Females are far less full of **** than males.

Jimmy has been a revelation. Showering him with love has brought great dividends for our keepers. They have been blessed with a wonderful companion.

My keepers? A bit like a mixture of all of us. In fact if you take all our characteristics you won’t go far wrong for a description of them.

Yes, we animals have saved countless lives, extended the lives of millions, and we ask for little in return. All this has been proven by your scientists. Without love, your world would collapse into bloody turmoil in an instant. Indeed it is love that keeps it going, and love that will ensure you won’t all run into the abyss.

Just imagine if I had the power you did. Like you I had a direct line to the Great Cat. I let go of my past resentments and conditioning. I learned to love unconditionally.

But I couldn’t have any of them could I, because I was just an ordinary cat. A simple soul who had a zest for life, an energy and fight when my keepers nearly had it all knocked out of them. A living model for how life could be again.

Who could possibly imagine why they would grieve my passing, and how one of them could dedicate this short story to my memory.

Who indeed…

Jack, November 2007.