By Anna Von Reitz
Who could imagine that a Great-Grandma in Big Lake, Alaska, could have something in common with a Tech Titan with a name like "Elon Musk"?
Still, apparently, both of us were blessed by being mentored by a Pashat warrior in the form of a stray black cat.
Most people are superstitious and avoid, or are cruel, to black cats, but that would be and is a terrible mistake. Black cats are lucky as a wind blowing widdershins.
Both Elon and I arrived at that point in our lives where we needed a friend and neither one of us could name that need, nor could we expect a friend to show up in the unlikely form of a stray black cat, but.... it all happened for both of us, and in exactly the same way.
The cat appeared, the cat looked us straight in the eyes, the cat followed us to the door of our building, and then, the cat waited for us outside.
I wasn't as smart as Elon and didn't get it the first time this happened.
I assumed that the cat belonged to someone who lived in my apartment building and didn't overly concern myself or understand that this Pashat visitor was mine in any special sense, until the weather turned bitter and cold and the cat grew skinny and tattered and frost draped his whiskers and fur.
Then, I dimly thought --- his family must have abandoned him. Maybe I should take him in?
Elon's business was in an office building, not an apartment building, so it was pretty obvious that his cat was not waiting for other family members. His cat was waiting for him to finish the meetings and phone calls and computer searches of the day, and many hours later, was still waiting when Elon emerged from his office building again.
Something prodded the billionaire, not the weather, not the disheveled appearance of the cat --- something else; a sixth sense that this particular cat was, inexplicably, somehow, attached to him. So, Elon picked him up and carried him home, more than a little bemused about the situation.
Had he become an "accidental cat owner"?
Nonetheless, a veterinary service was tracked down, the cat was cleaned up and cared for and fed and everything put in order.
I had an exactly similar reaction to my visitor. Same exact drill at the vet's office.
It seemed as if it must be a mistake and the cat's real owner would show up at any moment. The idea that I might be the cat's and the cat might be mine, didn't settle in for many days and nights afterward, but one thing impressed itself on me.
The cat followed me to the door every morning and waited at the door for me to return every night. In the evenings, he would curl up beside me. On weekend mornings, he would wait a decent amount of time and allow me to sleep in before waking me up with a head butt and a purr in the ear.
The same thing happened to Elon Musk. Every night, no matter how late, the cat would be waiting.
Gradually, the unlikely accidental cat became mine and I became his, in the same exact way that Elon Musk was captured and loved and "became love" in a way he couldn't have imagined before.
All because of a cat.
Having had this love relationship with a cat, one is never the same, and it's quite impossible to explain how you ever merited it, because you didn't. This is a gift, entrusted to you, by the Ancient and Honorable Kingdom of Cat.
It just happens, one day as you are bumbling along in your busy day-to-day schedule, a miracle wrapped in fur arrives, and it's your cat. And while he knows that he has always been your cat, you will have to learn that you have always belonged to him, too.
Humans, even the sharpest and most intuitive, can be a little dim.
And take a while to catch on.
Reading Elon's Cat Story as if it were my own (because, in a way, it was) and understanding his reactions blow-by-blow as if they were my own (ditto, ditto) was a little weird. I never considered that he and I might have anything in common.
Much less the memories and the soul-changes that are the inevitable result of a very special relationship with a cat.
Yet, so it is, and if we ever meet, I know that in a given moment, Elon Musk will look at me and I will look at him, and something deep inside of each of us will connect: our cats.
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