While watching Kedi, I looked over at my big boy "Moyo", mostly sleeping but perking up whenever he heard cats fighting or kittens crying. I thought about the moment he came into my life.
It was a rainy and cold September afternoon in 2012, I had just finished my Norwegian language/assimilation class and I was waiting at the bus stop in the center of this quaint coastal city I now call home. I was looking across the street, towards the large church tower with a clock that is the focal point of most Norwegian villages, it's on a large rocky incline with old buildings built up all around it, I see a large group of teenagers coming from that general direction, they're all laughing and looking down towards their feet at this 5-month-old kitten that was following them. They pick it up, give it snuggles, put it back down and continue on with their day/destination. The kitten then beelines straight for the bus stop with a large group of people, where I was waiting & watching him. A lot of the people waiting with me have shopping bags and this kitten is shoving his head in each one looking for something to eat. Some people laugh, others shoo him away, my heart breaks into a million pieces and I reach into my backpack and find something he might like. He gobbles it down and practically jumps inside of my bag. He starts rummaging through the garbage left by Norwegian slobs at the stop, trying to pry the lids off of empty containers, hoping to get at their remains.
My bus pulls up, I get on and move towards the back where I sit down, pull out my phone and call Richard in tears, "there's a starving kitten downtown and I think I should bring him home but I'm already on the bus." He tells me, "go get it." Before I can put my phone away, everyone on the bus starts laughing [which is a rare sound! Norwegians are quiet/private people unless they're drunk] because this kitten entered the bus at the front and ran straight to me. I picked him up and said, "let's go home." The bus driver stalks back and asks me if this is my cat in Norwegian, I respond in English "he is now."
I held him close to me with his head buried in my scarf the entire bus ride home, he was kneading it and hoping to get milk in return. When we approached my stop, I got up and walked towards the door and the elderly man sitting across the aisle from me, in plain English, said: "He's going to have a great life now in thanks to you, I just know it." I smiled at him as I held the kitten close to me, and that's how Chow became MY cat, devoted to me like no other cat I've ever had the pleasure of sharing my life with over the years.
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