Do You Ever Call Your Cat The Wrong Name?
By Elisa Black-Taylor
Do you ever call your cat the wrong name? By this I mean do you get the cat you have now confused with a cat you had years ago? Not necessarily because they may look alike, but because you recognize the spirit of your previous cat in the new cat.
Collage by Elisa
The idea for this article is based on my experience as a cat caregiver for the past 32 years. Over the years I’ve had cats leave me for the Rainbow Bridge, only to return years later. The physical similarities have been there, but these “reincarnated cats” even chose the same favorite sleeping spots as before. A couple of them even had the same “meow.”
I know I’ve gotten on my daughter Laura’s last nerve over the years by calling a cat by its previous name. Mostly because she was so young when the cat was in our home that she had forgotten it.
My very first cat as an adult was Smoky. She met her end in the road, and returned a year later. Smoky spent a few weeks with us in January 2012. We fostered her as a cat named Dolly. I knew it was Smoky the first time Dolly followed me and started to climb my leg. She found her own family within a few weeks, and we made the decision to let her go. She was the first of my cats to return, but definitely not the last.
Then there was Tiger, now once again a gray tabby known as Sammy. Tiger died at nine months of age of a tumor wrapped around his intestines. The tumor was wrapped in a way that surgery was impossible. I had him euthanized before he woke up from exploratory surgery.
My sweetest cat Mandy was also with me for several years back in the late 1980’s. She was a beautiful calico/tortie in her past life too when her name was Scrappy. My beautiful Scrappy died after a neighbor placed mothballs under their home to ward off snakes and Scrappy drank water the mothballs had dissolved in after a rain. Mandy doesn’t look as identical to Scrappy as my other cats do, but I can see Scrappy in her eyes every single time I look at her.
I believe as I grow older and my memory slips at times, my daughter may have to accept I’ve been given a second chance with several of my cats. If I call them by their previous name, well, she’s just going to have to make some adjustments.
Do any of you do this? I know Michael has written about cats having souls. I’ve also research the subject of reincarnated cats, where I learned a lot of you also have your cats back. Take a look at my collage. If any of you have pictures of your cats returning in an almost identical form, I feel sure Michael would be glad to add them to this article. I’ve labeled everyone so you can compare.