Emma was a good girl.
In 2006, about a week before my birthday, my mom and grandmother (Nanny) came to visit me at the new house I’d just moved into in Fort Lauderdale. After I opened the door to greet them, I saw a grey pet transportation cage by their feet. After hugs and greetings, I asked what was in the cage. My mom said, “Your birthday present! Her name is Emma, after Emma Goldman.”
Before I’d yet laid eyes on here – my first thought was annoyance for such a gift. I’d not expressed any interest in getting a pet. They are significant investments of time and money –and they restrict where you can live and what you can do (i.e. travel).
This feeling, however, quickly dissipated after my mom opened the front cage door. Out came a little white and grey ball of fluff with strikingly beautiful blue, slightly crossed eyes eyes.
After a second of looking around, Emma immediately began running across the house. This brought a smile to my face. When I finally caught her for the first time, looked into her slightly crooked eyes, heard her sweet little mews – I knew she was special. I nuzzled her with my nose, to let her know through actions of words that I whispered then that I knew she couldn’t understand: “You’re my little baby now, and I’ll take good care of you.”
As a kitten, Emma maneuvered rapidly around people’s feet while standing or walking around the house. A friend that took care of her while I went on a weekend vacation nicknamed her “a thousand snakes”. She said that her movements were so fast and sneaky – you’d be walking like normal and then almost falling over from tripping on her – that it made her think of reptiles swirling around her feet.
Whether I was sitting or lying down to read a book, she’d come jump on my lap or chest. She provided warmth and a soft distraction. I remember many times taking a short break from reading and putting down my book to rub her chin and the area just above her eyes and ears. She’s close her eyes and would purr like she was in a state of bliss.
The big house I was then living in wasn’t meant to last. Over the next two years I’d move into two different apartments. Each was smaller than the house that I’d first been living in when I’d gotten Emma, and each was smaller than the other. Unlike the house, neither had a backyard with a fence around it and sliding glass doors that I could leave cracked open – enabling Emma to easily explore the outside.
Because of this major change in environment, I gave her back to my mom. For the next 15 years, she took care of her gift. As her home was three times the size of my apartment, had a large backyard filled with plants, a Florida room with a cat door, and numerous pets in the neighborhood that she could socialize with or ignore based on her preference – it was a far more suitable space for her. I was sad to see her go – but happy knowing she’d have such a good home.
A secret joy of visiting my mom and stepdad was seeing Emma. She bonded with my mom and step-father – so Emma was sometimes aloof to me. This, however, didn’t take away from the joy I felt in watching her rumble around in the dirt, stalking lizards, birds, and squirrels, or getting an alert look on her face when she heard a neighbor’s dog barking. I took great pleasure in watching her jumping up from the ground to the fence, and then the fence to the roof. She was a strong, slender creature with a bit of wild still in her DNA – not some over contented fat cat. Many times as I’d pull into the driveway of their home, I’d see Emma on the roof – surveying her domain.
When getting in my car to drive home after visiting my parents, I’d find smudges of her footprints on my car’s windshield or hood. This always made me smile. This was a needed mood lifter – as when I was visiting she’d often ignore me unless it was the evening and she’d been shut out of my parents bedroom. I was the affection source of last resort.
In 2023, when she was then 17, my parents couldn’t look after Emma for an extended period of time. Since I couldn’t come stay there, my mom drove Emma up to Tennessee. It made me sad that the living space I inhabited was so much smaller than she had gotten used to and lacked the plant life that she liked to roam around in – however I was happy to have her as my company. She very quickly became inseparable from me – only leaving my lap or chest when I worked at my standing desk or the loud music from my neighbor drove her to crawl into the pillow forts I would make for her.
I think one of the ways that I got her to transfer all the love previously denied to me was to do something my parents never did – giving her human food. Emma didn’t just love human food, but became shrewd in manipulating me in how to get it, and knowing how to limit herself with certain treats.
She also figured out how to manipulate me into sharing food with her when I didn’t want to. After cooking a “nice meal” she figured out that by getting on her back legs and using her front paws to gesture towards herself – would lead me to I cut off a few small pieces of whatever animal protein I was eating and give it to her.
I can clearly remember the expressive look on her face after giving her a piece of steak for the first time. She looked at me like – “This is amazing! Why have you been keeping this from me all my life!?”.
The first time I brought home a burger, fries, and a shake from Cook Out when she was with me, she came up to beg even before I got the food out of the take-out bag. While she didn’t get any of my burger, as I lay digesting, watching TV and taking small sips of my ice cream shake, she jumped on the couch, walked up my chest, and after sniffing around my mouth let me know that she wanted some shake.
I gave her a fingertip’s worth of ice cream, which after trying she then proceeded to get more of by trying to stick her head in the open lidded cup.
I pulled the cup away from her and then, feeling bad that she’d gotten no burger from me, decided to give her some of my shake. A few seconds after her greedy tongue began lapping at the big spoonful I put in front of her, her face distorted. She had a brain freeze. However much she may not have liked that sensation, it was clearly less than her appreciation for the ice cream. She finished the little bit left on the spoon and begged for more.
This time, I readied my phone camera to video her getting a brain freeze. But this time, she took three licks of the shake, then stopped. She waited a few seconds, took three more licks, then stopped again. She did this routine two more times before I withdrew the spook. I was disappointed. I didn’t get the cute cat video I wanted. But I also felt an even stronger feeling of pride upon noticing that she quickly figured out that binge licking the frozen liquid caused her brain to freeze up. Clever girl.
When no one was around to listen, I’d improvise song to sing to Emma. I’d describe her as beauty, a cutie, with a furry white booty. I’d sing, poorly, about how she had eyes that were blue like the skies and how I felt it was a prize for me to look into them.
On more than one occasion, usually when Emma was purring loudly on my chest, I’d imagine how it was cats that inspired and helped shepherd humankind to transition from primitive hunter-gatherers to civilization and agriculture.
This – obviously – isn’t some well-thought-out hypothesis informed by research that I have. I just found it nice to think about how our species have adapted with each other over the past several thousand years. It made me remember how the Ancient Egyptians worshipped cats and think – yes, I get it!
One time, while she and I were in Knoxville together, there was a two week period of heavy snow. I was far more excited to bring her out into the snow in hopes that she would explore the carless-parking lot adjacent to my apartment than she was to play in it. I’d place her down on the ground and she’d run to the door, calling out to me to let her back in and shaking her tail with annoyance.
Now that she’s gone, it saddens me that Emma had been neutered. Not only would she have had beautiful babies, I imagine she would have transmitted her delightful and unique personality to them as well.
I miss her cuddles before I’d go to bed. I’d lay on my side and she’d place soft foot pads on me and purr as I pet her. Often times, she’d even turn to the side, like a little spoon and would place the backs of her paws against me. Sometimes they’d be at such an angle that I could feel her back claws. The first few times I worried she might scratch me by accident, but she never did. She was a lover girl.
I feel blessed to have had Emma as a furry companion during the first part and last parts of her life. I miss her greatly.