A Clinging Shadow

The year was 2015. My girlfriend (now wife) and I had been talking about getting a pet for a few weeks now, and we were considering a cat, since we lived in a rather modest apartment at the time.

One September day, we decided to drive over to the Edmonton SPCA and visit the furry friends who were waiting for a family there. In truth, we didn't know who we'd come to find, and weren't even expecting to adopt a new family member then, but little did we know, a tiny three pound ball of fur had other plans.

We walked in and were told by the people working that they had a special on adoptions for black cats that day. I was semi-surprised to learn they were the least adopted of all cats, even though they might be the ones with the most personality. We visited several friendly critters that day, though none felt as though they were ready to come with us.

Until we went into the last room.

We were immediately drawn to a cage by the entrance, containing two kittens from the same litter. One was a smoke-colored, grey and black long-haired kitten, the other was a pitch-black short-haired one, with only a patch of white on his stomach.

My girlfriend was immediately drawn to the long-haired one since he had a very nice color, while I was drawn to the black one.

The first thing I noticed was that the one with long hair had very short whiskers, and I chalked it up to him having had some health issue or something of the sort. The black one started playing with the zippers on my coat right away, then wrestled my fingers, while his brother was calmly laying in my girlfriend's arms. We traded kittens and the same thing happened once again.

We decided one of these two was coming home with us today, but we couldn't decide which one. As we were discussing, one of the volunteers came in and explained to us that the reason for the long-haired cat's shortened whiskers was because the black one had chewed them off.

My girlfriend argued that this likely meant this one was a troublemaker, plus I had told her how I used to have a black cat that I loved years before, so she added in that I might just end up replacing my old friend with one who happened to look like him. I agreed with some reluctance, and we picked the long-haired cat's information sheet from the wall to get ready to start the adoption process.

We had just put the two kittens into their cage and were ready to head out when something I'll never forget happened: the black kitten reached his paw out between the bars and grabbed my girlfriend's coat.

It was a done deal from that moment.

She broke down crying upon realizing that this little ball of soot had chosen us. We took the other set of papers, and once due process was completed, we went home with our new family member.

It's been several years since that moment, and little has truly changed. The black kitten was dubbed Pippin, and he's been wanting to be held in our arms, asking to be picked up by grabbing our legs, or sleep on our laps ever since. Even as I write this, he's sleeping next to me on the table, where I had to put blankets down to free up my hands from his need for attention and his unending flow of affection.

No matter what mischief he gets up to with his two sisters, Merry and Sam, the moment he chose us will remain one of the most special moments of my life.