I am a firm believer that anyone who feels alone in life ought to own a pet.

My personal choice is a cat. I have owned a few dogs, and all of them have been wonderful pets and companions, but the cats I have owned have always been a constant source of comfort and plenty of entertainment.

I chuckle every time I hear someone remark that animals do not have facial expressions. They certainly have never bonded with a dog or cat.

There are so many stories I have to tell about the ones that came to stay with me. And hopefully, I will be able to write them all.

This story though is about a cat we named Jake, who adopted us as his family.

A few years back in late autumn, I began to notice a stray cat in our yard. It was a rather large long-haired cat that was brown, cream, and black striped.

If I went out into the yard, the cat would race off into the woods. I had the feeling that this one was a hungry cat that was in search of food. I began to leave dry cat food out on the far side of the yard under a tree. The cat would wait until I was back in the house before it would come up and eat the food.

This went on well into winter. Every year in winter, my husband would leave deer food under the same tree. This particular winter was a harsh, cold, and snowy one. Somewhere in late January I believe, we had a blizzard that dropped about 36 inches of snow! It buried everything including the deer food. I had not seen the cat in days and was worrying about it when my husband came home from paying the rent and told me that the cat was living under our landlady’s deck. I felt much better knowing it would survive.

With the cold continuing, the snow was not melting at all. The deer would still come and paw their way to the food. On one particular night, I was looking at them out of our kitchen window and couldn’t believe what I saw. There were about 3 or 4 deer around the food pile. They were facing the house. About 6ft in front of them and the food was the cat! It was facing them, ears flat on its head and in a stalking position! What did this cat think? Was it going to try to take on a deer?

Even though I knew it would run, I still grabbed the cat food and went out to the picnic table. The snow was so deep that it was level to the top of the picnic table.

As I did every single time I had gone out with food in the past, I began talking to the cat. Sure enough, it took off, but this time it stopped (about 6ft away from me), looked at me, meowed loudly, and ran behind the garage. I turned to walk away back to the house and just before going up the stairs to the door, I took a peek behind me. The cat was already on the table and eating! The food was gone in minutes. I went back out. This time the cat jumped off the table and stood about 3ft away waiting for me to finish leaving more food.

The following night, we went through the same ritual, only this time I was in for a very big surprise. On the second helping, when I went out, the cat stayed right where it was on the table and waited for me. When I finished pouring the food out, I put my hand out toward it making little kisses noise that people usually call their cats with. It came right across the table at me and rubbed my hand repeatedly with its head. I still to this day have no clue why I did what I did next because I know better with wild or untrusting animals. I picked this cat up and it did not fight me! It was the complete opposite! It pushed in closer to me and purred and purred and purred some more.

Upon picking this cat up I discovered it was starving to death! The only reason that this cat seemed so big was because of the hair it had. It was so skinny I could actually feel every single rib and even the vertebrae on its spine! Since I had a cat in the house, I could not bring it in until I had taken it to the vet’s to have it checked for any diseases that could be transferred to my cat. But I did make a bed on the porch for it.

A week later, I could see the cat was gaining weight. I was finally able to get an appointment to bring it in. I still didn’t even know its gender, or how old it was.

I had been going to this same vet for years, so I was quite surprised by his attitude toward me. He was very abrupt in talking to me when I realized that he thought that I had allowed this cat to starve. I told him that I had been leaving food for him (we now knew he was a male) for months, but could never get near him until this past week. I told him about the first time I was able to pick him up and that he had already gained weight since that night. I explained how there was nothing between his skin and bones! The vet changed his attitude immediately and told me that I had saved this cat’s life. From my description, the vet told me the night of the snowstorm, the cat had maybe only hours left to his life.

He also told me that the cat was about 9 years old and had been neutered. That told me he had been somebody’s pet! I have no clue if he was abandoned, or if his owner had been elderly and maybe passed away. I only know that according to the vet, this cat had been in the wilds for quite some time.

He was given a clean bill of health to enter our home. When I got home that day, my husband and I came up with the name Jake.

It wasn’t long before Jake was a full member of the family. He and my female cat (don’t worry both were fixed) Peanut, had established a relationship that worked for both of them. Jake had bonded with my husband and it was cute to see him follow my husband everywhere.

It was somewhere in the spring that I had come home to a very interesting scene in the backyard. Jake was laying down enjoying the sunny afternoon and Peanut was across the yard busy playing or catching something under our grill. I was now close enough to see that she had a baby rabbit. Now I am a person who tries to remember and honor the instincts of animals and leave it be. As I was now entering the backyard, I saw Peanut carry the baby rabbit over and drop it in front of Jake. Wow, nothing like being king of the jungle here! About that time my husband was coming out of the side door and down the stairs, clearly heading for the backyard. He was not yet aware of what was going on. I think I already knew he wasn’t going to stand for any of this because I have seen how he is with any type of ‘baby’ animal. Sure enough, I was correct. Before either cat could react, he went over to Jake and snatched the baby rabbit away from him. He was holding it close to his chest, petting it. He was horrified that the cats were going to kill this rabbit. I told him that this was nature and what was he going to do with the rabbit? He said he was going to let it go. I tried to tell him that he was just prolonging the inevitable fate of this bunny. He said he was going into the woods and hide it somewhere. He had been pacing around the yard all this time and I don’t think that he noticed that no matter where he stepped Jake was a mere few steps behind him. As I pointed out that the cats would just go in and find the rabbit, he said he didn’t think that they would. He then noticed that Jake was right behind him. Now my husband truly loved this cat, but at the moment he was very agitated. He turned around to face Jake and said (as if he was a dog), “Jake, sit, stay! Do not follow me.” I was amazed to see that Jake did sit down and did not move from that spot as my husband went into the woods. I think he was in there a good 10 minutes and Jake sat there the whole time, never taking his eyes off the spot my husband entered. When my husband came out, Jake waited until he passed by and with complete calmness, stood up and proceeded to stroll into the woods. My husband just shook his head sadly and went into the house. Jake didn’t come back for a few hours and thankfully had no telltale signs of why he had been gone that long.

It was sad about the rabbit, but as I had said before, it is nature. I would not trap animals for my cats, but I never prevented them from hunting. They were awesome at keeping our property mouse free.

Life went on as before. Jake as usual following my husband everywhere, sitting with him at the picnic table, lounging nearby when my husband worked in the garden, or on his boat.

Jumping ahead into summer, this season was no different than the previous two. Winter, we had horrific snowstorms, more than normal. Spring we had rain and wind, slightly abnormal amounts than previous years. Now that summer was in full swing, it seemed the forecasted swarms of cicadas were here. I had never seen one, but you could hear them in the trees. When they swarmed a tree, the sound was just like a helicopter hovering.

Early, on one particular sunny Saturday morning, I was sitting outside enjoying the sun and quiet peacefulness. Jake also was soaking up the warm sunny morning, lounging in the garden. As I was sitting there, I noticed something glittering in the sunlight about 2ft from where I was sitting. I leaned toward it to get a better look, and saw that the sun was reflecting off the morning dew on what appeared to be the biggest fly I had ever seen! It was just about the size of the palm of my hand. I noticed that it appeared to be lethargic, maybe because of the dew? I wasn’t sure. Because of this though, it gave me the courage to pick it up in my hand and bring it into the house to ask my husband if he knew what it was. His answer was simply “Oh that’s a cicada.”

So, this is what one looked like. After hearing so much about them, I am not sure what I was expecting…but it wasn’t this. I thought this bug was rather ugly. I went back outside and was getting ready to let it go when I spotted Jake still lounging in the garden. Thinking he would enjoy playing with this creature, I went over, got his attention then tossed the insect in the air. I was right. Jake sat up and started to bat the bug around with his big paws. When the bug would land, Jake would pick it back up and toss it up again just so he could bat it around some more. This cat never ceased to amaze me. He was playing with this bug like a dog would with a ball! This went on for a good 10 minutes when I heard the side door open and looked up just in time to see my husband enter the backyard. Apparently, Jake heard him too. I was just about to tell my husband to come and see how much Jake was enjoying playing with the cicada when Jake looked behind him, did a double-take, and to my utter amazement, grabbed the bug in his mouth and proceeded to devour it, wings and all! There was nothing left! And that’s when it hit me that this cat was not going to allow my husband to come anywhere near him and steal his catch!

Later, when thinking about this whole scene, I realized that not only was this cat extremely gentle in nature, and loved my husband dearly, he also knew how to communicate on a human level. The actual translation of that morning kind of went like this….’I love my dad. I can’t spend enough time with him. But, enough is enough. I am a cat, I do things that he will not like, I make sure that I do not do them in front of him, but I know that as a cat, it is what I do and there is nothing wrong with it. If I could talk human words, I would remind him that he doesn’t have a problem with me killing and eating mice. So, please do not interfere with me and my job.’