“I quit and it has taken two years, but yesterday, I smiled and laughed from ear to ear. I have not been able to laugh like that for over 10 years.” – Anonymous YouTube comment
Last January, our cat suffered a trauma.
Whether by vehicle, predator, or deranged previous owner, she acquired a broken back-left femur; those bones exposed through open wounds when animal control picked her up in a nearby hill country town. Unbelievably, the pound chose not to euthanize her, but instead, they treated her with antibiotics and amputated her back left leg. For the next five months, she bounced between pound, shelter, foster home, and then one last shelter in Asheville, where our paths crossed.
Unbeknownst to us, my wife and I had crossed a threshold. We were now cat people, effectively transformed from dog people. If one lives in Asheville for over twelve months, they must come to own a cat or move out of the city. It’s the only way I make sense of the cat population. They’re everywhere. Throw a stone and hit a cat. Take a walk and you’ve got one rubbing on your leg, and before you know it, you’re on the couch searching for cat shelters and comparing the merits of various litter box setups.
In May, right at our one-year Asheville residency mark, my wife and I visited a shelter downtown, Cats at Play Café. It was our first stop, and we stepped inside tepidly. We were neophytes, suddenly inside a shrine to cats. Cat coffee mugs. Cat clothing of all purposes. Cat jewelry. All for sale. Who buys this shit? I thought to myself, as we waited for the clerk to finish with another customer. All we wanted was a friendly cat—almost dog-like—that would curl up in my wife’s lap while we watched Severance, House of Dragon, and Love is Blind. We wanted a low-maintenance cat, a low-risk addition to our family.
To soothe the nerves, I ordered a Meow-tcha latte. Yes, they served food and drink, all menu items with their punny names, all coffee brewed to “purrfection”.
If we paid the entry fee, advised a woman in a tabby t-shirt with matching tabby earrings, we’d have 30 minutes to meet the cats, a dozen in total, and if we met our “soul-cat”, we’d be offered the chance to adopt after interviewing with the café’s owner.
Fair enough but damn this is kinda serious, my wife and I’s glance seemed to say. When the top of the hour chimed from a 1950s swinging-cat-tail clock, we were allowed entrance into the play side of the café.
I felt fur on my right leg, not two steps inside the door. I gazed down at a spry tuxedo cat, who immediately ripped a guttural “Meowwwwwwww.” His name was Spot, per the name under his photo on the opposite wall’s identification board.
“Well, hello to you too bud,” I said. My wife and I laughed. Then, Spot was gone, locating an attractive opening on the couch next to another visitor.
We got our bearings, taking in the six-hundred square-foot room, and began our game of I Spy, locating cats on branches of six-foot-tall fake ficus trees, cornered into shelves between books, and atop complex, multi-level treehouses and swings. It smelled heavily of cats, despite being meticulously clean. My wife sneezed.
“Are you sure you want a cat?” I asked, implying our shared understanding of her allergy.
“I want a cat. I’m fine.” Subject closed.
We toured the room, met the residents, and after twenty minutes of speed dating, we assessed our intuitions. We really liked a few of them, including Spot, but none seemed like our “soul cat”. The disappointment was real.
Then, the tabby-shirt-and-earring cashier pointed toward a door in the back, saying in passing, “Some of our cats don’t do so well with people and other cats. They hang out in our office. You’re welcome to meet them too. Let yourself in.”
With ten minutes left in our session, we entered the introverted area. One cat was curled up on a sofa, covering its head with both paws, and when we said her name, she remained curled. Moving on, we turned into the owner’s office, which was empty, aside for a calico cat perched atop a printer inside an impossibly small nook in a shelf. And that is the cutest fuckin’ thing I’ve ever seen, I thought to myself, watching my wife kneel before it and extend her hand toward the cat. Instantly, the cat reached out her paw to meet my wife’s index finger.
This is our cat, I thought to myself, my wife now looking at me in awe. Oh yeah, we’re not leaving here without this animal.
“She’s a sweet girl, huh?” a woman said from behind us in the office’s entry. She introduced herself as the café’s owner, then told us what she knew about this little cat on the printer. She was three-legged. She was very shy, but also, very sweet. And playful.
We signed the papers. We owned a cat: Rummy.
In the first few weeks, we didn’t see much of Rum, aside from her appearance at breakfast and dinner. She staked out under our bed, always allowing us to rub her face, but nothing more. Her new cat tree went unoccupied. Her new cat scratching posts and pads went unscathed. Her innumerable cat toys sat inanimate, though her ears did perk with each appearance of the ball. It wasn’t because we didn’t try. We attempted to coax her out with all the spirit we could muster, but she knew what she wanted, and she wanted to remain safe under the bed.
Her appearances gradually increased. We started batting the ball back and forth. She began rubbing watchfully around our legs, scooting away if we tried to pet her. She explored room by room, finding her spots, rubbing her way across all surface at her level. Except for the kitchen, she hated the kitchen. The fridge’s hums and thrums too terrifying.
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When she walked, she thumped, bumping her backside with each step. Without her back left leg, the limp was sensical. If she started to gallop, which was rare, she could avoid thumping, but mostly, she scooted around between the softest rugs and carpets. Her other legs couldn’t support the weight.
Around three months, the talkativeness started. A meow here or there. A chirp of excitement during ball. For long stretches of the day, she was out and about, often sitting next to me in the office. Atop the cat tree. In the windowsill. Chasing ball or spring, playing games all her own with minimal involvement by us. Though, at random, she’d disappear for a day or two under the bed, again without a thing we could do to coax her out.
Now, six months later, she still hates the kitchen, but if the ball crosses onto linoleum, it’s not guaranteed asylum. If we get a delivery or a visitor, she darts under the bed, but quickly emerges afterward. She gallops frequently from here to there, only thumping during more thorough investigations. At any given time, she’s bound to be exploring the highest height in any of the rooms. As I work at my desk sipping from my cat coffee mug, she usually hangs out next to me in the window, unless a squirrel or bird pulls her to another room. And she’s just so loving, ready to sprawl out purringly for rubs every time we come home.
We doubt she’ll ever jump in our laps while we watch television, and that’s fine by us; after all, she’s been through a lot. But it’s only been a year since her accident—and six months since we adopted her*—so, anything could happen. She’s hasn’t stopped surprising us yet.
Every morning, beginning third year of medical school, I would lie in bed awaiting the buzz of my snoozed alarm and say a prayer (not necessarily to God, more to any force that could possibly improve my existence, which certainly would’ve included God, but I can’t say I was religiously associated at the time):
I just want to feel like myself again.
For years, I hadn’t felt like myself, and for the years to come, I’d feel less and less like myself, until the day came when I knew if I continued to live the life I was living, I’d soon have no self at all.
So, I quit.
And kept praying.
My experience since has been one of gradual reemergence, like the return of a wildfire-torched mountainside. At first, a few sprouts of green grass pop through the ash. After a year, flowers appear. Then, a speckling of fir trees take root, and a few years later, it’s not as tall or thick as it once was, but the mountainside is a shade of green deeper, perhaps prettier, arguably. After twenty years, you can still spot the charred remains of a once mighty pine, but mostly, when you take in the mountainside, you only see the mountain; once more in wholeness, restored to itself, different but the same.
Earlier this week, someone commented below one of my YouTube videos, which I quoted at the top of this essay. To save you the upward scroll, I’ll paraphrase: two years after quitting medicine, this person laughed heartily for the first time in ten years.
This comment reminded me of a recent daydream I’ve been having, one of a ski trip, of rallying family and friends, of heading to the mountains for wintry good times. It’s exciting. Why? Because it sounds awesome. How long has it been since a ski trip sounded awesome? Eight years. Finally, nearly a decade later—and now two years since I quit medicine—my stoke is back.
Healing takes time, sometimes years, maybe even decades, and for that process to even begin to take root, it requires trust. A generalized faith in our own capability, yes, but closer to a radical leap of the faith. If we speak to our needs and if we place ourselves in a new environment, restoration of who we are is possible… with time.
This risk is perilous, but so is the gamble taken by the first fir tree on the charred mountainside or the first extension of a cat’s paw inside a rescue shelter. Love and healing always follow risk. We will always get what we give.
As I sit here at my desk, with a day’s work done, something ricochets beneath my feet. It’s a ball. To the excitement of a crouched cat in the doorway, I bend down, pick it up, and throw it down the hall, hearing her chirp in glee as she bounds after her ball.
And that’s why it’s worth it. To feel like ourselves, once more, different but the same. That is why we take the leap of faith.
*Note: in cat years, six months equals two years.
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