There is an old English saying that a cat has nine lives. “A cat has nine lives. For three he plays, for three he strays and for the last three he stays.” Shakespeare in his play, Romeo and Juliet referred to it saying, “Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives.”
The Egyptians were fascinated by cats. They believed cats were divine creatures with supernatural powers and the goddess Bastet’s ability to change from human to cat and back again may have contributed to the idea that cats have multiple lives.
The saying is often understood to mean that cats are lucky to have a remarkable ability to survive life threatening situations. Some believe that cats will always land on their feet when falling from a great height.
Dear ones, why am I writing about cats and their nine lives? I will tell you why, I think of myself as a cat and dog person. All my life I have kept dogs and cats. They lived in harmony and after I got married it was the same. When one gets a cat after a dog, the cat behaves like a dog. Ours came for walks, travelled with us all over India in cars, trains and planes. Our cats were fearless and then it happened, one of them was killed by a stray dog.
We stopped keeping cats because it was too heart breaking. Then in 2020, our dachshund died, and we decided not to keep a pet. So, we started feeding the wild cats which were living around us. Some cats had been abandoned and they started visiting us. First, we gave them dog food which they enjoyed, once I ran out of dog food I started getting Meow. They loved it and I had several families transiting.
Then we got involved again with Lulu Lola, who looked like my first cat after I got married. Well, it happened again. She would come and go and gave the kind of love which wild cats give. When I would not be in the house, she would wander around looking for me. She was short tempered and after a morning purr and wrapping herself around me she would want her food. She would bite or scratch one if one wasted time. She slapped and bit my husband regularly as she was impatient.
I will share her lives with you
She was a teenage mother, and she took good care of her kittens. They were born in the monsoons and so she would take them from one dry place to another. One of them stayed on and once we petted him, she ignored him. My husband taught him how to climb trees and jump. Lulu was thoroughly irresponsible.
He was born in our balcony and stayed in our balcony. He got runover by our neighbor. She mourned him as he was her companion. Then she got hurt on her spine. She recuperated. Then someone tried to poison the cats and dogs in our neighborhood. She also ate the poison. She bounced back.
Tomcats assaulted her, she would get hurt and then she would recover. I would pray to the Goddess to save her, and she would become ok. It was a miracle each time. This time she had a false pregnancy, and she died. She died in the garden. Just after my 75th birthday. I know Lulu Lola will not be born again.
Shasthi is a Hindu cat goddess. Her mount is a cat. She is worshipped as a protector of children and helps during childbirth and is the goddess of fertility.
Aim Hrim Klim