A Christmas miracle with a bad photo

Meet this guy. He’s kind of chubby, vibrantly orange, and has a constant puzzled look on his face. I don’t even know his name - but he’s one half of the best Christmas present ever.

If you follow The End is Naenae, you’ll know we lost Kо̄whai a few weeks ago. Kо̄whai and Atawhai were best mates. Although not related, they were rescue kittens together, found at a similar time. Inseparable, it was clear they could only be adopted as a duo.

Kо̄whai, although tiny, was the badass of the two. When he was alive - even though we kept them inside at night - the cats would bring a stream of birds into the house, often a couple a week. I was mortified by this, but if I’d wondered who was the ringleader, the question was solved by Kо̄whai’s death. Since then, Atawhai has only managed to bring in two crickets, before realising he was out of his depth.

At first, when Kо̄whai was gone, Atawhai sat on my bed, waiting for his brother. He just waited. And I waited too, silly though it sounds, watching him; wondering if an animal’s heart could be broken, and if so, how on earth you were meant to mend it.

Atawhai has a gentle spirit and crazy reserves of love; is not like a cat is meant to be. I don’t know the technical term for when a cat kisses your nose with his nose. We call it ‘snozzling’. Atawhai snozzles like no other, rubbing his stinky cat saliva on our screwed up faces with unbounded joy. He’s doing OK. Without his brother, he has turned his love towards his human family, but with no one to play with outside, he mostly hangs around home.

I’ve owned a bunch of cats, but I’ve never seen any with a bond like Kо̄whai and Atawhai. It hurt to lose that, but I felt lucky I ever got to enjoy it.

Introducing Chubby Orange Puzzled Cat.

He was tentative at first. I’d catch him trotting across the section, giving us the side-eye. He got a little bolder, loitering on the edge of the deck, even making his way furtively to the sliding door. One day I opened the door, reached out, was able to lure him briefly with a pat on the head.

But it wasn’t me he was coming to see. He and Atawhai started meeting on different sides of the sliding door, face to face on either side of the pane. And when Chubby Orange Puzzled Cat visited last night, Atawhai was briefly let out, even though it was past his bedtime. They looked at one another. Without a pane of glass between them, they touched noses.

Then - and this is my Christmas present, maybe the best ever - they just ran off like a pair of dicks, across the lawn, to play together.

When even cats can feel love for each other, you have a look at yourself, wonder where as a human you could improve.

This damn year, it’s frayed me. The sense of humour that got me through 2020 has sometimes deserted me. So too, sometimes, did the solidarity. I realised there were people in my world who’d fallen down the rabbit hole, into ideas that are repugnant - and they’re not coming out. I think we’ve all been there: felt forced to make bitter decisions between our relationships and our values.

I went with my values. It doesn’t make me right or wrong, but only sad. I crave connections that feel as though they’re from a different time. I hope that time will come again.

I want to thank you for reading to the end of this post, for making it to the end of this year. And I want you to have the best Christmas break. Every Christmas, we wish each other joy: this time, let’s really mean it, even if we need to work harder at it.

For a day or so, may we all have light-heartedness, affection and laughs, like there’s two batshit grown ass cats stomping around on the lawn.