Midnight was a rescue cat, and we shared a deep bond.He would accompany me everywhere- even to visit our neighbours. People said’ he’s more like a dog than a cat.’ He was a tough veteran when we got him, but he displayed the sweetest nature. Sadly ,after only being together for three years and three months, he was killed in an accident. I felt as though my heart was broken, and that I’d never love another animal in the same way.I had never shared such a deep connection with any animal.
Three years and three months later the black cat who I would call Mystic walked along our driveway and demanded to be let in. When I saw him in the garden under the tree that Midnight used to sit under I wrote this poem
Memories of Midnight.
I see you there, beneath the tree
Sharpening claws just like he
Used to in that very place.
It is an unexpected grace.
Seeming so familiar and dear
As if he could just appear.
A streak of blackness, passing through
Returned to me, somehow in you.
Oh, I know you are not the same!
Forget and call a well-loved name
Realise, I’ll not see him again
And welcome then the burst of pain.
Mostly though, you give me joy
Remembering my precious boy.
People say ‘it’s just a cat,
Oh you’ll soon get over that’
As if it were a lesser love
And you have no right to grieve.
In the places of my heart
You know there is a space apart.
Secure, enclosed and wholly yours,
Where sunshine and shadow still endures,
Blackness bounding lightly on long grass
The brightest eyes, warm as amber glass.
Oh the welcome in your meow
How I long to hear it now!
Loving you brings joy and pain
Yet, I have dared to love again
–
Another cat, with blackest fur
And a warm resounding purr.
Here is photo of Mystic and I
Sonia Bellhouse- Author. 
A beautiful poetic tribute, Sonia. I can relate to your sense of loss for Midnight – I too had an incredibly strong connection with a cat that only shared my life for three years before she went missing, never to be seen again. I grieved deeply, to the confusion of some who said ‘it’s only a cat’.
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Thank you Teena. .Love is love and our connections are not are not simply with humans. In fact, I believe that we connect with some animals on a soul level. Midnight was my soul cat- a once in a lifetime experience I think. We grieve for all the time that we might have shared together.Those people who say ‘it’s only a cat’ would never understand.
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arrrh, cats are loving animals. I had a cat when I was a teenager, but she loved mum and dad more than me because they took care of her more than I did hahaha – suppose I was in my silly teenager years lol! I don’t know what happened of her, I should find out one day.
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YEs that stry moved me which is why I shared it.
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Many cats just dissapear- sadly there are cat haters out there. Cats are lovely companions and I think they respond to you the more you interact witht them.Thats why your cat was more affectionate woth your parents-they fed her.
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I was a busy teenager. I was an avid reader, the minute I finished reading a book, I started to read another one. My life was more at books than other things when I was a teenager.
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I too lIved in books and my imagiantion- it seems that we are much alike.
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