Have you ever heard the story that when a female cat leaves home, she might eventually come back with a few little copies of herself?
I honestly never thought much about it. Until it happened to me.
A few weeks ago, one of my female cats suddenly started coming home again. She is actually one of the cats that rarely stays at home. Whenever I happen to find her somewhere, I usually bring her home with me. But she never really seems to like staying here. After a while, she always leaves again. So I've gotten used to it. She comes home. She stays for a little while. Then she disappears again.
But this time, something was a little different.
One afternoon, she came home and was much more affectionate than usual. She kept coming near me and seemed unusually comfortable. Then, after a while, she left again. When it was time to eat, she came back. After eating, she left again.
At first, I didn't think anything of it. I just assumed she had started visiting more often because she knew there was food waiting for her here. One of my other cats, Nancy, does pretty much the same thing. She usually stays at my aunt's house and only comes home when she's hungry. Once she's finished eating, she goes back again.
So I thought this cat was doing the same thing. Nothing unusual. Until about a week later.
One afternoon, another one of my aunts, who lives not far from us, told my mother that there were several kittens hiding underneath the drainage channel in front of her house.
She asked if they might be kittens from our house that had wandered too far. My mother said no. As far as we knew, the only kittens we had were Cimit's newborn babies.
I happened to hear them talking about it. And then I remembered something. The female cat who had recently started coming home more often looked like she was nursing. That's when a little thought crossed my mind.
Wait... could those be her kittens? I wasn't sure. But I really wanted to find out. So, I brought her to where the kittens were.
And... Yeah. They were hers.
The moment I brought her close to them, the kittens immediately came running toward her. They knew her. There was no hesitation at all. They gathered around her like they had been waiting for their mom to come back. That was the moment I realized where she had been all this time.
She hadn't just been wandering around. She had been raising a family.
I still have no idea where she gave birth to them or where she had been taking care of them. I don't know how long she stayed there either. But somehow, she had raised them really well. The kittens were already big enough to walk around on their own, and they could eat by themselves too.
And then came the funny part. When I started walking home, they followed me. All of them.
So after watching their mother come and go for so long, I suddenly found myself walking home with several tiny kittens following behind me. It really felt like she had gone away, and came back with little copies of herself.
Today, I finally had some time to bathe them together with some of my other cats. Of course, not everyone was immediately happy about the new arrivals. Some of my cats stayed far away from them. They probably had no idea who these little strangers were. Some just stared at them from a distance. Others simply walked away whenever the kittens came near.
I guess that's normal. They had only just met, after all.
But then something happened that I honestly didn't expect. One of my cats accepted them almost immediately. She started treating the kittens like they were her own. She stayed close to them and treated them so gently, even though they had only met a few days earlier.
And now the house is a little more crowded again. There are Cimit's tiny kittens. There are the cats who have been living here for a long time. And now there are these little newcomers who somehow appeared in our lives.
I still don't know where their mother raised them. Maybe somewhere under a house. Maybe in someone's yard. Maybe in a quiet little corner where she felt safe enough to raise her babies. I probably will never know.
But wherever it was, she did a pretty good job. Her kittens are healthy, active, and incredibly cute. And when I think about it now, her behavior suddenly makes a lot more sense. Maybe those afternoons when she came home weren't really just about food. Maybe she was coming home because she knew she had a safe place here. Maybe she was simply taking a break from being a mother. Or maybe, in her own little way, she was slowly finding her way back home.
She left without me knowing where she was going. And then, one day, she came back.
Not alone this time.
She came back with her family. And somehow, without planning it, our little home became their home too. I don't know if she ever intended to bring them here.
Maybe she did. Maybe she didn't.
But seeing them all together now, running around the house, makes me feel like this was always where the story was heading. She went away for a while. And when she finally came back...
she brought a little piece of her life with her. Or, more accurately, she brought several little pieces of herself. Now, whenever I see her kittens running around the house, I can't help but feel that her return wasn't really a coincidence.
She didn't actually come home alone. She came home with her family.
And I think, for a cat who had spent so much time away from home, that might be one of the sweetest ways she could have said...
"I'm finally home."
