This week, we have guest writer and Montview MS Writing teacher PJ Shields taking over and sharing the heartwarming story of her cat, Ghost.
This is Ghost. He is almost 18 years old and lost his best friend of his whole life last May on the last day of school. Ghost is a massive black cat who has a big, spooky name but endures humiliating nicknames, like Ghosty, Ghost Boo, Ghosty Boo Boo, and perhaps worse, Uber Boober. His lives with his humom, DSST Montview writing teacher PJ Shields, and has a Cat Daddy who claims he doesn’t like cats (but he really does). Ghost is old. He doesn’t have his top fangs, patrols the house at night singing the song of his people, and has dashing gray hairs. Unfortunately, he does not have a history of liking other animals other than his big bro/best friend, so it was tough to know if he should live his senior years alone with no-fun humans or try to make new cat friends.
After his best friend Sid passed away, Ghost tried really hard for the whole summer to be an only cat. But his days were long and lonely. Humans, he discovered, were terrible playmates. Toys lost their charm. He started to get very lazy and his muscles started to weaken. This was concerning. Over time, Humom and Cat Daddy decided they had to risk getting another cat to give him company and keep him strong and moving. A long search led them to, well, two cats.
Meet Ember and October (Tober).
These two kits are a pair of sisters who were carefully selected to bring new life to the household in the months after Sid’s loss. While littermates, the vet believes they have different dads. Ember is a spotted tabby and Tober is very likely a Maine coon mix. She’s gonna be a biggun’.
Alas, this is how Ghost felt about them despite those cute little faces.
So much for his dignity. He hid under his blankey with his stuffed owl hissing and growling while the kits played happily and ignored his curses.
Claw covers were applied because inaccurate slapping became a hobby. The caps were applied just in case he ever landed one of his haymakers. He very much wanted them to get off of his lawn.
October decided she would love her great-great-great-great-great granddaddy even if he was super cranky. She would wait until he was napping and would join him, edging closer and closer until he woke, hissed, and fled.
The kits were persistent. Here we see Ember “not touching” him.
And here is Tober just loving him anyway. Poor Ghosty.
We survived the holidays…
… and because love is patient, love is kind, and love is tired of resisting, love wins.
Do you have a pet that everyone needs to know about? Email us at mac@scienceandtech.org
