“Look Tabby, have you seen this on you pawpad. Mrs. Human’s online colleague Lee is telling us about his cat Bubba who is now living his tenth life with Bastet, perhaps he has met Nera.”
“Who knows Fluffy, we can ask her the next time she floats down from the eternal corn chambers.”
“Of course I know Bubba, he is known as Big Bubba here and very much respected.”
“Hello Nera, nice to see you again. Can you tell us all about him. It might give us a few tips if we have a threat to our territory.”
“No problem Tabby and Fluffy, but my tip is always to run for the cat flap. It is the safest escape any time. We are not all Bubba’s. So here it goes:
“We had a big black tomcat, name of Bubba, who died in late 2011 at 22 years of age. Bubba was a very unusual cat. He ruled every cat and dog that he met. He'd beat the living daylights out of any cat that challenged him and once the cat surrendered he'd become best of pals with him even going to the extent of leading a band of cats and protecting all cats in the area. One Rottweiler owner made the mistake of letting his dog go after Bubba. After all, it's only a cat. The owner didn't like the vet bill for getting his dog stitched back up again once Bubba was done modifying the dog's undercarriage.
Bubb would bring home kittens and females, set them up under the house and protect them. He'd tirelessly patrol his territory. We never had to worry about anything on our property with Bubba around.
Bubba had many other very remarkable characteristics, many of them more doglike than catlike but all of them unusual in *any* animal.
So, Bubba died. Grandchild was desolate, so were we. It was definitely a family member rather than a pet we had lost. I remember remarking "Well, if there's such a thing as reincarnation, this cat - if anyone - will be back if he wants to be."
Fast forward to early 2014 - five hundred miles north in the new home.
"Meow!" Open the front door, straight in walks a stocky little black and white tomcat. Has a snack, introduces himself to the other cats, settles down and has a nice nap. He moved in the moment we opened the door. All the houses along our road, he chose ours.
A week or two goes by and we realize that this cat is displaying exactly the same unusual behaviors as Bubba did.
Grandchild comes to visit, he's in the living room, PB (the cat) walks in. Grandchild yells "It's Bubba!" Cat walks straight up to him and hops into his lap and settles down - never having met this child before. They spend the rest of the visit together. As Bubba and he used to.
PB goes on to rule the area, protect and collect lesser cats, beat the snot out of dogs, and generally display exactly the same behavior as Bubba did. Even to the extent of favorite foods and hunting habits. He also exactly filled the hole that Bubba left. Something we never thought would happen due to the rareness of cats such as Bubba.
Remember, this cat found us and moved himself in.
Myself, I'd say the cat is a good argument for reincarnation. If anyone could persuade the afterlife to do what he wanted, it would have been him.”
Reminds me of the old song "..........thought he was a goner, but the cat came back............"
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