My first unsolicited client

I sent this email to a buddy yesterday. A cat had followed me home. I was lost and confused as to what to do with her. I'd called him in exasperation. Here's the e-tale.

I've NEVER, just never had a cat cry out to me like that.

After a little while to process it, it was the certainty the cat seemed to convey that I could help that got me involved.

I heard the meow. I recognized a chord of distress. I've never heard a cat do that To Me! I've heard tale, as they say. Well, actually, no I hadn't even heard of it before. It was so completely new to be called out to that way.

The way the cat whined and whimpered, it felt like a baby calling to me.


I suppose I should assume that there must be something new about me that preceded the interaction. I can only guess... Perhaps its as simple as it being the first time I was available enough to actually hear the sound the cat was making, to hear the plea underneath the standard meow.

Her pain, her demand to be heard and attended to with that particular sound of desperation...I couldn't just walk away.

I'd bent down and touched her. When I couldn't see any way to truly help her, no collar to return to her home, no obvious injuries to suggest calling the humane society, I went back on my way, back on my walk. She followed. Perhaps I shouldn't have looked back to notice.

I'd stop. Tell her I couldn't do anything for her. I'd turn around and go back on my way. Then I'd hear that meow again...and sure enough she was tagging behind.

That was the thing. The sounds she made. The utter desperation. And again, it just sounded so insistent. I started to wonder if she was supposed to become mine. I'd just noticed the other day that a book on Cats was sitting on my shelf from this time a year or two ago when I'd considered a cat. Then I looked at her and looked directly in her eyes. I just couldn't walk away.

I indicated she could come to my place. Since she was following me, it seemed the only logical conclusion. My plan: Take her in, give her some food, let her stay on the deck with a blanket for warmth till the morning and then send her to the humane society and post a flyer in the complex. That was the plan.

She got to the stairs and stopped. She was clear on no interest in coming up the stairs. Which would have been fine enough with me if she hadn't parked herself and made these eerie meows and gutteral shreiks. Talk about throaty.

As I type my own issues of abandonment are surfacing. I couldn't walk away and let her sit there shreiking...at the base of my stairs. It felt like ignoring her. Heartwrenching for me.

I brought her the vanilla soymilk...all I had. No interest. She didn't stop meowing in that pitiful way, either. I came down with tuna. Watched her eat it. "OK She was hungry. Maybe that's all it is. We're done." When she stopped eating she just sat there. I brought it upstairs. Made the noices that it was OK to come up...(see plan above).

She didn't budge. I closed the door. Shreiks and meows. Evidently, though she appreciated the food, that wasn't her primary need and she was willing to let me know.

Sarcastically..."Thanks for that!"

My cousin joins me in the intrigue. He brings over the book on Cats. Now, I'm back on the thinking that its my job to be the one that helps her. We're reading through the book. I find the part on what the different cat sounds mean. Not at all helpful. Duh, I figured out she was pleading for assistance on my own. Meanwhile, I've also got the phone book out looking up humane society.

While my cousin and I are reading the book, door open, she comes up the stairs. Back with the sounds, the meows, the occasional sounds of emotional pain.

But she won't come in. I even went to pick her up and bring her in at this point. She arched her back and walked back out. She didn't go down the stairs. Just waiting for me to figure out what she's trying to say.

That's when I called you.

My original thought when I called was that you'd hear her sounds and be able to translate it into plain English for me. Whatever you said she was saying, I'd hear and obey and be done with it.


When you said, "Walk her back to the spot I found her and send a prayer to the universe for her," that was all it took. It seems like without anything more on my part, she was already heading down the stairs. It was after you named it the Jesus Syndrome. Down the stairs she went. No need to even walk her back to the spot we ran into each other.

Off she went. I guess she heard you better than I did.

The end.


Now I get to spend a couple days revisiting the whole thing to take as many lessons as I can from it. The first thing I wanna do, though, is identify why it happened. How did I invite it? Why did I invite it? Why did the cat feel I'd be willing/able/interested????


Just as I typed that, I heard her outside again. I've been in the same part of the house all evening. She just came back with that sound right now.

She gets a tone that almost makes me feel she's not of a kindly nature.

I ain't opening the door, though. Not even gonna look.

Gotta go pray her away.


Oh I prayed her away all right. A day later.

This evening the cat came back. She'd come back this morning also, but I couldn't be bothered. I just ignored her. Figured she was just doing what stray cats do.

This evening I was reading up on Reiki. Gaining some insights. Because little cousin is spending the night, the tv was a little loud so I moved me and my reading into the back room.

Within just a few minutes of sitting down I heard her out there doing that gutteral meow of desperate need. After last night I knew it wasn't food she wanted, nor warmth nor shelter.

Since I was reading up on Reiki anyway...

I meditated, sent her some Reiki energy. Quiet...except for a low-volume sighing meow.

As I did so, I had one of the experiences I'd heard of but not yet experienced when healing. I actually sensed the location of her pain and discomfort. It was located in her core just above the right front leg. I concentrated my mental picture of the healing energy going to that location. I saw a second location, too, nearer the rear of her core. I sent a little there too.

I had the intuitive sense of having acted appropriately, having done the right thing. Full of pride, after a few minutes I patted myself on the back and went back to my reading.

Evidently the back-patting was premature. The cat called out again. Intuitively, I knew immediately what was wrong. I'd stopped before I was done. I sent a spiritual apology to the cat for getting distracted and re-focused on the second location.

When I was done, she was gone. It's been pure quiet since. I expect, unlike last night and this morning, it'll be quiet for a while. Actually, my true sense of it all is that she'll back tomorrow evening and maybe the next for another treatment or two and that'll be that.


I won't blame anyone for questioning my interpretation of the events. It's hard to believe that a cat crosses my path, picks up I might be of assistance and then practically begs for it. What I can't deny is the intensity of her pleading eyes last night.

I've asked friends and family to let me practice on them and they have. But its awfully nice to be asked.