It was a surprisingly cold Tuesday afternoon in September 2015. My dad was picking me and my brother up from school and as we walked the familiar path to his car, and as we got closer my dad told us that he had a surprise for us. I was happy, but not too excited since I expected it to be food, but as I climbed into the big, black truck and opened a small, brown box–I saw two yellow green eyes staring up at me.  

The day I got my black cat; Scout was easily one of the best days of my life. From the first moment our eyes met,I felt a sense of comfort and familiarity. Like we had met in a past life. When I first held her warm 5 pound body in my arms, I could feel the tenderness and love flowing between our two beings. From that day on I felt a special connection to her — like there was an invisible string tying us together.    

As we spent more and more time together, I started to believe that she was in fact not a cat, but a familiar. According to European folklore, a familiar is an animal with supernatural entities that assists witches. Other theories suggest that a familiar is just an animal with a deep connection to a human.    

It was just small ordinary things that made me believe my cat was a familiar, like when I felt anxiety when doing an assignment so Scout would prance into my room and plop herself on my lap. At times I find myself speaking to her about my problems and troubles in life, and I will say that there is something in her intelligent, yellow eyes that just makes me think she understands.     

As the years went by I started noticing that the connection between us began to deepen, and odder things started to happen. One night when I was taking out the trash I tripped on our curb and broke my ankle. I was in so much pain, then suddenly my cat appeared out of nowhere and rubbed against my ankles. This small act helped give me the strength to make it back into my house. 

Many would scoff at the notion of a spiritual connection between a cat and human, but history and legend would prove them wrong. Cats — especially black cats — have a deep and ancient history of spiritual and human connections.  

In Egypt, one of the most important gods was Baset. This goddess was seen as a symbol of protection, and was often viewed as a black cat. Many families kept black cats in their home to be protected by Baset. Likewise in Celtic religion, black cats were fairies known as Cat Sith. They also believed that if they left milk out on their doorstep on Halloween, a black cat would come and bless their families.  

The common legend of black cats being bad luck comes from Puritans associating them with witches. They believed that witches could turn into black cats nine times, which is where the cats have nine lives myth comes from.   

Most black cat legends include a theory of fate involving the meeting of a familiar and their person. When I reflect back on the way that I got my cat, it’s hard not to believe that there was something divine about the way our paths intersected.    

A middle-age engineer was driving on the road to work, just an average day for an average man. What he didn’t know about that day or himself is that he would be uniting two soul, mates. As he drove along I-34, he noticed something in the trees, a small black cat. For reasons that will forever remain unknown, something compelled him to pull over his car and save that little 5 pound cat from certain death. He then brought her to his work where she was picked up by a man hoping to bring joy to his daughter and son who had an affinity for cats. 

I know the idea of supernatural, and fates intertwining often seems unbelievable, but I think those that have experienced it first hand have no doubt of its existence and the role it plays in everyone’s life. There is no doubt in my mind that the spirit that lives inside of my cat’s little body and my soul are intertwined by fate and spirits that I will never fully be able to understand.