Years ago (mid 70s), our family had to move across country because of an employment situation. We were forced to move in with grandparents for a short while until we could find ourselves a new house to buy. As they already had several cats, we were forced to give our year-old cat a new home. We placed a classified ad and a young couple called us. They made arrangements to pick the cat up later that day. They lived about a two hours drive away.

I was about 10 years old at the time, but recall the event rather vividly. We were hit by a violent Maritime storm that night, high winds and wicked rain. A typical Nova Scotia hurricane. None of us could sleep with the racket outside the windows and I remember just laying in bed missing the cat we'd given away earlier that afternoon.

Around two o'clock in the morning, I heard my father's footsteps upstairs in the kitchen (my bedroom was in the basement at one end of the house). I heard him open the side door of the house, and then he called out to my mom. I got out of bed and went upstairs to see what was going on.

The cat we had given away earlier that day was now standing in the middle of the kitchen floor in a small pool of rain water, looking like a drowned rat, shivering like crazy. My parents stood there with the most puzzled looks on their faces you can imagine.

Well, we dried it all off and wrapped it in blankets for the rest of the night. We stayed up for several more hours coming up with various theories as to what had happened. We never heard from the young couple again. We don't know how the cat got away from them, or how it had managed to find its way through the fierce storm to our house. It had been out in the weather for 8-10 hours, and looked as though it had traveled a great distance.

Needless to say, we all took it as a sign that the cat was meant to stay with the family. We gave up any further attempts to find it a new home and instead took it with us when we moved. To this day we still scratch our heads in amazement when someone mentions the story. We'd all heard stories of animal homing instincts and such (a la "Incredible Journey", etc.), but this was a personal experience for our family that still leaves us wondering.

Copyright © Silent Knight
August 15, 1999