I had grown up with more than one cat, and having a small collection of animals around the house felt normal to me. Stella had been around other cats when she was younger, mostly roommates’ cats, as well as a couple of mellow dogs. She had been social enough with all of them. So I naively assumed another cat would be fine with her.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.
Mr. C arrived young and enthusiastic, but eventually Stella forced us to reorganized the house around him. He soon lived mostly downstairs, separated by a baby gate we installed for her comfort. She lived mostly upstairs, with occasional hesitant side quests into her former territory, constantly looking over her shoulder for the intruder.
And before you talk to me about proper cat introduction methods, trust me, we tried everything. Even hiring a “cat behaviorist” for several pricey zoom consultations.
It wasn’t that my sweet girl had suddenly become a cat who hated other animals. Looking back, I think she was older and already not feeling well, and what I wanted for our household simply wasn’t what she needed at that point in her life. I feel some guilt about that now. Still, she made the upstairs hers and had many more good days ahead of her.
In her fifteenth year, our bedroom became her territory, and our bed was its center. Stella followed the sun from one side of the mattress to the other. For reasons known only to her, she particularly liked my husband’s pillow. It was never offered to her. This did not matter. Cats clearly have their own ideas about property.
Last November, we learned that Stella’s condition had rapidly declined and due to her age, couldn’t be treated. When we realized she was in significant pain, we decided to have a veterinarian come to the house.
At first, Stella was resting on our bed. When it was time, we brought her down onto the floor. I held her in the doorway of the bedroom while the vet gave her the injections.
Exactly one week later (or close enough to the exact moment that I noticed), a beam of sunlight came through the bedroom window and landed on the doorway where we had been sitting with her.
Mr. C came upstairs (he has full reign of the house now). He stood in the light facing the door, and his shadow was projected onto it. From where I was standing, there appeared to be two cats: Mr. C and a dark second shape beside him.
I took a picture. In the photograph, he looks almost as though he is staring at another cat in the doorway.
The light slowly faded as I sobbed in my bedroom.
I know how sunlight works. The earth rotates, clouds move, and a window receiving light at a particular hour one week may receive it at roughly the same hour the next. Still.
Almost a year later, I started thinking seriously about adopting another cat.
Mr. C is very social, and I have the sense that he might genuinely enjoy a companion. This time, we could be more deliberate. We could look for a cat whose temperament suggested that another cat might actually be welcome, introduce them slowly, and try to make a better match.
But Stella was my soul cat, if there is such a thing. Bringing someone new into the house meant accepting that the part of my life in which she was physically here was over. I was conflicted.
One afternoon in September, I was talking to Mr. C about it.
I told him we might bring home another cat and that this time we would try to find someone who actually wanted a cat friend. I told him it wouldn’t be like Stella. I told him I wanted a sign.
There is apparently a school of thought that says you should explain major changes to animals before they happen. Whether cats understand these conversations is unclear. Mr. C listened with the expression of someone who had requested none of this information.
Stella’s ashes on the nearby bookshelf, I found myself talking to her, too. Are you okay with this?
Then I walked upstairs. It was an overcast day, and there hadn’t been much direct sunlight in the house.
But when I entered the bedroom, a break had opened somewhere in the sky, and a warm beam of light was falling across the bed.
Onto my husband’s pillow. Stella’s spot.
I walked over and placed my hand in the sunlight. The light got brighter.
I cried… bawled, if I’m being honest.
There is, of course, an explanation for this that involves clouds. I don’t dispute it.
But I have never understood why a physical explanation is supposed to cancel out an emotional one. Sunlight can be sunlight and still arrive at a moment that means something.
For a little while, the room felt different. Warmer in a loving way, if that makes sense.
Then the light slowly dimmed again.
I don’t know what happens to animals after they die. I don’t know whether Stella can manipulate cloud cover. Given what I knew of her personality, I’m not prepared to rule out her having strong opinions about the weather.
But I think the question I was asking was larger than whether we should adopt another cat.
I had brought Mr. C home because I wanted another animal in the house, and Stella, for reasons I didn’t understand at the time, wasn’t able to welcome that change. Now I wanted to do it again. Part of me needed to know that I wasn’t repeating some betrayal of her.
But the past can stay exactly where it was. I will always miss her. I can wish I had understood certain things sooner. She will remain completely herself in my memory: the young kitten I brought home back in college while I was grieving my mother, who gave me purpose and showed me unconditional love, and the older cat who chose to follow sunlight across our bed.
The answer, if it was an answer, was a patch of light on an empty pillow. Permission to make room.
