The Guardian

It’s Move Me Monday.  Do you love amazing pet stories?  The kind where a pet’s love for its owner leads them to strange and sometimes miraculous acts of heroism?  Well I’ve got a personal one to share with you.  I wrote this article in college as part of a class assignment.  Part of the assignment was to query magazines for each article we wrote (talk about a scary class!).  Anyway, I Love Cats magazine decided to print it in 2006.  Here’s the story.

Mom awoke in the middle of the night to an unfamiliar noise: a loud meowing.  Until that moment, my longhaired cat, Ashley, had never made a sound—not a howl, not a hiss, not a mewl. We had assumed she was mute.

That night, however, my mother found Ashley pacing and yowling in the hallway.  My mom knew cats were smart–there had to be some reason silent Ashley was suddenly crying.  Worried, Mom came into my room where the cat usually slept.   She found me, her diabetic daughter, suffering from a severe drop in blood sugar, too weak to call for help.  Had Mom not checked on me, I might have had a seizure, slipped into a coma, or died.

I found Ashley through an ad in the Mercury News; a family had taken in a cat, not knowing it was pregnant.  Ashley was the shyest of the three kittens needing a home. I felt drawn to her, being shy myself.  Her fur was beautifully brindled: ash gray, wood tan, and cloud white.

Ashley loved freshly baked bread.  The sound of the can-opener didn’t do a thing for her, but the sweet aroma of bread in the bread machine did. Ashley was also the only cat I’ve ever seen who liked to play with water.  We couldn’t convince her that her water dish was strictly for drinking.  Spritzing her only encouraged these shenanigans.

Ashley never used her voice for herself—even when she was stepped on or accidentally locked in a closet—but she was my voice on multiple nights when my blood sugar dropped to dangerous levels, and I was either too weak to call out or too deep in sleep to wake.  She was an ordinary house cat, napping on pillows, lounging on the windowsill, and chasing flies through the house.  Nobody knew about her nighttime heroics unless I told them, and nobody will ever convince me that cats are useless, lazy pets.

In 2004, Ashley took her turn to fall asleep and didn’t wake up.  I still miss her, but my family will always remember her as the heroine who saved my life several times.  She was more than just a house pet, more than a child’s best friend.  Ashley was my guardian angel.

Losing a pet is always hard.  It took me several years before I could open my heart again.  As most of you probably know, I now have a beautiful tortie whom I absolutely adore.  With time comes healing, and the heart is big enough to make room for additions.

Do you have any amazing pet stories?  Have you lost a beloved pet?  How long did you wait before opening your heart and home again?  I love hearing from you!

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For the rest of September, everyone who leaves a comment will be entered into a drawing to win a free e-book copy of Elemental Magic when it releases.  Five winners will be selected.

Aileen Donovan wants nothing more than recognition as an elemental scientist by her supernatural community.  What better way to do that than to solve a mystery involving a power-hungry alchemist, hallucinogenic coral, and a homicidal sea dragon?  The hardest part will be working with Coast Guard officer Colin Benson—until the tides turn, and Aileen realizes that love and duty may not have to be mutually exclusive.