My Cat Ran Away Because Her Sister Was Mean to Her

How I ended up in my bra and shorts outside

My traumatized cat ran away.

My girls and I adopted Ahmie (she) and her sister (Kharie) four years ago. Tiny and adorable as kittens are, they were inseparable. Snuggling together next to us, or curled into a tight ball of love on a chair or bed. Snowy, our snow white rescue from a feral mum, became their protector. And until last year, the three cats did everything together. Except go outside.

Outside was Snow’s domain. A transplanted city cat, he roamed the backyard of our suburban house, lord of the fences. Snow navigated streets, cars, and humans. Wherever he went adventuring he always returned home, whether that day or days later. He never returned empty-handed. Gifting us with sometimes live, but severely damaged, mice and birds.

When she was alive, my mum would kill them to end their suffering. I am squeamish and haven’t found the backbone to do as she did.

Attempting to stem the tide of dead rodents and birds, he wore a collar with loud jangly bells. When that failed to reduce the body count, we kept him inside, until the screaming meows became too much for us.

If you’ve never awakened to the inhuman screams of a cat in heat, you may not understand. Those of you with cats know why we opened the door and said, get the fuck out.

Ahmie and Kharie were indoor cats. They’d sprawl in front of the glass sliders, gazing at their brother. I imagined they enjoyed living his outside adventures warm and safe behind the doors. The few times we took them out on a leash, they would tug and pull to get back inside to the safety of walls and roof.

Until the pandemic.

I don’t know, maybe they had enough of us being home all the time and wanted more space. Could be they were tired of the boy having all the fun and wanted their own adventures. Whatever their reasoning, last year they started clamoring to get out. Know what’s worse than a single cat screech meowing at the top limit of patience? Three cats screeching. It could also be that I’m a pushover who hates denying cats (and people) what they want. Or, as my 16-year says, I’m easy.

It’s likely she’s hit that nail spot on. In my defense, I don’t believe I own living creatures. My job is to care for them, feed them, love them, and ensure they’ve got all the shots they need to protect themselves. And anyone else with whom they interact. I also suspect they’re wiser than we are. Once I head down the road of the autonomy of animals, my arguments for going against their will disappear. Like vapor.

The girls advanced from tentative steps out and running back in to lounging on the porch. Then to exploring the neighbourhood. Inside was for food, water, a few hugs before outdoor adventures beckoned.

Bigger, louder bells seemed to inhibit the pile-up of dead mice from their brother. So, attired in similar noisy jewels, out they went.

One day Ahmie didn’t come back. A tentative girl, she usually stayed close to home. Her name and our phone number were on her collar, so we weren’t too concerned, until one day turned into two. Then trees and poles became home to flyers with her picture and contact info.

“If your cat’s still missing, I think we’ve got her. Does she look like a little lion?” Oh, you bet she does. Fellow animal lovers, these cat rescuers, plopped her into their carrier and drove around the corner, delivering her to our door.

Somehow she’d ditched the collar, tags, and bells, so thinking she was a stray, they planned on keeping her. Ahmie is a snuggler. She’s a cat who loves keeping her humans close. Her rescuers little boy had fallen in love with her, snuggling her to sleep over the two days she’d been missing. Then the flyer popped up in front of their building.

Back home, Ahmie was now housebound.

Yeah, you know she got out again or there’d be no story. Off she went, right back to their house. They took her in and called me. Off I went, three minutes around the corner, cat carrier in hand, and brought her home.

But now, the once inseparable threesome had morphed into a twosome.

Ahmie was on the outs with her brother and sister. I don’t speak cat so what happened between them; I don’t know. In human terms, it was like a threesome gone awry. Kharie was now hissing at her sister, and Snow, once her protector, now cuddled only with Kharie. Clearly, our cats had had a spat.

How long could this war last? Apparently cats can fight for a long time. Because, here we are more than a year later, and the two sisters still refuse to engage with each other beyond hissing and snarling. Over a boy cat. Snowy and Kharie are always together. Curled into black and white balls, licking each other clean while Ahmie is forced to watch from the side or go off on her own.

I think she feels the exclusion keenly. It’s not enough that Kharie is with Snow. Kharie swipes at her sister, often letting her know she’s an unwanted third wheel. As much as we love her up, she must be feeling pretty awful.

Ahmie got out and ran off. Again. Searching didn’t reveal her whereabouts and her adopted friends had moved out of our city for school, work and affordable home ownership.

We tried not to worry. Ahmie is a sweet cat, always wanting to snuggle. If I go downstairs to my office, she will scamper off her perch and follow. If I’m in the kitchen, the basement, wherever, she’ll follow. I figured she’d turned on the charm and found a new home. I was content to leave it at that.

My nineteen-year-old wanted her cat back.

Three days missing and we moved from flyers on trees and posts to flyers directly in mailboxes. A night of hard pounding rain raised fears of flooding and still, we couldn’t find her.

I suspected the black and white pictures weren’t enough. They didn’t showcase her colour. I added a QR code with a colour picture of her huge green eyes, front and centre.

A video popped up in my texts along with this message. “Is this your cat? She was in my driveway last night.” There she was, on camera. Yes! I texted back. They sent their address. It was directly behind our house and up the street from her former rescuers. We plastered that street with flyers.

Another three days passed and nothing.

A phone call. “I think I saw your cat in my driveway. Does she have bright green eyes?” Yes, yes, she does. Their address showed the cat was now three kilometers from home. Two hundred flyers later, doggy and I were getting our steps in, but still no cat.

Now you gotta understand something about me. I’m fatalistic. I truly believed we were never going to see her again, so why do the flyers. Why walk and walk, besides getting in my ten thousand steps, searching for a cat that was either dead or cohabiting with another family?

I printed and put up the flyers, fully believing we’d never see her again, but I did the work, anyway. I believed she was choosing to be away from home. That she’d run off because she was forced out of her cat unit. I kept going because of my daughter.

The Role Physics Played

A few weeks before this cat drama, my 19yo called me crying. She was in Toronto at her dad’s. My girl, who’d always been keen to study law, and had taken every class in high school with that goal in mind, switched her focus. She now wanted to become an engineer. An aerospace engineer. Yep. Rocket science.

Unlike a lot of kids who might have been preparing for that level of study for some time, she hadn’t. She needed more math, more science, more physics.

The call came at one am because she’d recently started her physics course and was struggling. “I can’t do this. Nothing makes sense. It’s way harder than I thought. What should I do?” This all came out in ragged breaths, wails, and tears.

Shit. I can talk to my chicks about sex, death, drugs, whatever. In the face of heartache and tears, my anxiety and fear overwhelm. Because I don’t believe I have the skills, the golden words a sitcom mum would dole out to make it all better.

I know as parents we’re not going to have all the answers, even some of the time. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling and believing I should know and deliver that elusive but magically perfect palaver that makes it all okay. In other words, in feeling completely inadequate and lost, I was making it about myself.

I stopped.

There’s this thing I’ve been practicing which goes like this: Stop. Breathe. Ask. It’s my method to control my anxiety so I don’t vomit my fears all over my kids. So, I did just that. I stopped. I asked myself, what is this really about? She doesn’t believe in herself. What’s the impact? It can encourage a lack of self-confidence and we want to build confidence.

It’s a small pause, but that moment of stopping and breathing helps me think and calms my amygdala. Breath in, breath out, it’s okay, I’m not the perfect mum. It’s okay.

I don’t remember exactly what I said. It went something like, yes, this is hard. Anything new is going to feel impossible. You’re going to feel dumb, overwhelmed, and scared. That’s normal. You’re learning. It’s okay if it’s hard. I’ll support whatever you want to do. We talked a bit more until she was calm and could sleep.

Formulas For Wind, Water and Sound

Measuring the movement of wind, learning the formulas to measure sound, to understand water displacement (apparently, still tricky) she completed the course with an 80%. Studying law, she crafted thoughtful, clear arguments and won the opportunity to do a mock trial in a courtroom in front of an actual judge. Can she ace rocket science?

Seems possible to me.

So, August 4, I finished my nine to eight, put the two hundred newly printed flyers in a yellow folder, leashed doggo, and continued the search.

By the sixtieth house, possibly the fortieth, my mind was focused on the putting one foot in front of the next. Sweat was running down my back and an asthma attack was in the early stages. I closed the mailbox on the flyer, turned around, and there she was.

Ahmie flopped onto the ground and started rolling around. I thought she might run, but she stayed right where she was and let me pick her up.

In My Bra and Shorts Sitting on the Sidewalk

In my haste to force myself out the door, I’d “forgotten” the bag I’d been meaning to bring, just in case I found her. Since I didn’t actually believe this endeavour was going to be successful, the bag would’ve been more stuff to carry that I didn’t want, so I’d forgotten it.

Sitting on the sidewalk in my bra and shorts in front of rich white people’s homes, I struggled to Macgyver my top into a cat carrier. You know, a tuck, a fold, a knot and tada! It didn’t work. Small top, big cat equalled, can’t it get darker any faster?

I sat with cat and dog, figuring my next move. At that moment, a neighbour biked up asking if I was ok. A bit of small talk and she went for her dog harness and leash for me to get my cat and dog home. Thank you.

I pictured the dog in one hand, the cat in the other, both walking and us making our way home. The cat refused to walk.

I tugged the leash. She locked her legs. I tried again, and she refused, adding a loud meow. I rearranged the harness, another pull on the leash. She flat out was not walking. Remember the asthma attack that was beginning? I’m allergic to cats.

I picked her up, and she climbed to her favourite position, nestled on my right shoulder, claws lightly on my back. And off we went. Slowly. She’s a heavy cat. And me panting. A few steps later, we were sitting on the sidewalk so I could suck back an inhaler and catch my breath.

Back home, the first thing her sister did was a hiss at her. So the war will continue. But Ahmie is tight with her human family and now she sleeps in bed next to me. I’m easy, remember.

My leash lending neighbour told me there are so many cats missing right now. With myriad flyers are up everywhere, they don’t even see the postings anymore. Finding her was a longshot, especially after a week of being gone.

She’s sprawled out beside me and puppy right now as I finish this. She got out again today, but I marched out and brought her back.

The point of this story

It might be a little thing, and we’ve all heard it before. Nothing is impossible.

Most people in this society don’t like asking for help. I’m the same. To find that cat, I had to ask for help. I had to fight my anxiety, my sense of hopelessness. I had to keep going when I would have preferred to sit and believe she was okay in some magical “other” place.

It was easier to believe the cat had found a new home, and that was for the best. I wouldn’t have to face her real loss as long as I convinced myself she had a new home.

My daughter fought through her fears and took a step to do something that seemed out of reach. Now she knows she can do the hard stuff of fighting her anxiety and fear. She believed she’d get her cat back.

Impossible can be done. It’s more than a state of mind. Achieving the impossible isn’t a belief. It demands direct, intentional action.

I didn’t mention racism and White Supremacy in this story, but this is still about how we can beat those devils down. I believe it’s impossible for white people to change. To act with compassion and humanity.

I hope you prove me wrong.