Peanut

I have always heard that cats were more faithful than dogs, that they like the house and not the owner. I was never a cat person until I met Peanut, my adopted cat. From the start, I realized we had the same personality. She liked to play, she fought for her spot not mattering with what animal she had to, but one thing about her, she did not like to be petted, unless the day was extremely cold.

It was Christmas Eve time in my home country and summer time. I had spent the day in the kitchen preparing everything for the supper. I was both physically and emotionally drained since it was my first Christmas without my help/father. I dropped my phone on my room, sat on the couch in the living room and started to cry.

I left the main door opened and Peanut came in and started to stare at me. I ignored her curiosity and kept with my low cry. Within a minute, she jumped into my lap, as she used to do when she was afraid, and rubbed her face on mine. That`s a gesture I had recently learned that means “family”. She wouldn`t stop rubbing her face, until I slowly stopped crying as if she completely understood me in that moment. I petted her for a small while and she walked away as her mission were done. As her unspoken words were said and she helped me.

Around five months later Peanut was ran over by a car in front of my house. As my sister is a veterinary, she received care as soon as the accident happened. We knew she would not make it, despite her consciousness the whole time. Peanut was medicated and placed on the Emergency Room and I stayed with her for the whole time she was breathing. Rubbing my head against hers and feeling she doing the same for me. Taking care of her as she did to me. Saying she was my family as she did to me.