When I took my cat to the vet for the first time, the vet walked into the room with his papers, took one look at him and then his name, and laughed out loud.
“Have you seen they’re making a new Hocus Pocus movie?” She asked me. I laughed and confirmed for her that I had. A full conversation happened in that question that didn’t even need to be said out loud.
I am a white woman from the Northshore of Massachusetts whose favorite holiday is Halloween. Of course, I have a black cat named Salem.
Salem came into my life at just the right time.
I had been wanting and looking for a cat for a while and was stuck on finding a black cat. It had always been my dream to get a cat and name it Salem. It felt so…right and not the least bit cliche as some people teased me for. There was not another name that even passed through my mind at any point.
It happened on a random Monday. From the second I laid eyes on his photo, alongside all of his brothers and sisters, I knew I had to have him. He was as teeny as could be, still so young his eyes were blue, and being held up at the weirdest angle with every single claw out, ready to defend.
Salem, March 2022
Luckily for me, out of him and his seven brothers and sisters, he and the gray one were the only two left. I messaged the man on Facebook requesting him, then six weeks and $250 later in a bank parking lot, he was mine.
I won’t go through every waking minute of owning him, as I am sure I could and wouldn’t be able to stop. But, something about getting this cat truly changed my life. I was so nervous the first day, crying when he would hide under the couch, thinking he was never going to love me.
Crying again when my boyfriend got home and was immediately able to pick him up. Salem looked up at him with the most loving eyes I’d ever seen, and I cried again. This time out of jealousy.
Ever since that second day, he came right out and sat on my lap without a moment’s hesitation, and we’ve been together ever since.
Salem and I spent every waking moment together that summer. I was going through a mentally rough patch that year, barely able to leave my house or keep myself calm throughout the nights. I wouldn’t eat or sleep, but every second of it, Salem was there.
He would rest on my chest at night, sleeping peacefully next to me and keeping me company. If I cried and he wasn’t near me, he’d come right up and snuggle without question, he had a sixth sense for what I was feeling. I got through most days because I realized if I didn’t get up, this little being that depended on me would be neglected, too. Which was wholly unfair of me.
When I moved back to my parent’s house, he was the most important thing in the world to me, and there was no option for him not to join me. It was the first time that I felt unconditional love reflected back at me, without even so much as a word said between us.
Throughout the past three years, we have formed a stronger and stronger bond and understanding of each other. He can read my moods, and I can read his. I know I sound truly insane, but I can’t describe it other than we were meant to be together.
I have never felt this kind of overwhelming and immediate love for something before. He is my whole world and every moment that I get to spend with him I feel so lucky.
There’s something so special about being able to sit on my couch, watching Salem come to stand in the doorway and immediately knowing that it is lap time.
He will sit with me for hours, as I read a book or watch TV or play a video game. He’ll stay there while I run to fill up my water or make a meal and will be waiting patiently for me to come back. Sometimes, he will follow me and watch on the counter as I go about my day. Wherever I am, he is too.
At the first vet visit, after the jokes had died down with the vet, she asked me for his first immunization records. I had forgotten to ask the guy on Facebook for them, so I sent him a quick message while they looked him over.
He got back to me fairly quickly, with a PDF attachment that had all his notes and shot information. What struck me so hard and fast, was his birthdate. I couldn’t hear a single word that the vet was saying to me, I just sat in shock.
Salem was born on my birthday.
We shared a birthday, it truly was fate. He came into my life having already been destined for me, in a year and time when I needed him more than anything. Of course we got along so well, understood each other, and were able to communicate what felt like telepathically, we were meant to be together.
If my vet noticed me crying quietly while I read it, she didn’t comment and gave Salem back to me. I hugged him so tight while he struggled and scratched because he wanted to go home, but I would have been scratched a million times over just to have a special moment with him.
Reading all of this back, I truly do sound deranged. Because all of this aside, I have another cat.
But that was all for Salem, truly. I was starting to notice when I would watch him from all the security cameras in my house that he was very lonely. He would sulk around the house, going from room to room, until he eventually would settle and sleep for hours.
I decided to get a second cat, and I already knew what I wanted. And here we go again, I wanted a white cat named Casper. At this point, I was leaning into it.
This time around, I got obscenely lucky with searching on PetFinder, and finding Casper within a couple of days of my search. On the final page of all available the white cats, the last cat listed was a white cat that was already named Casper.
Salem, the true only child that he is, surprisingly loved Casper with not even a breath of hesitation. In the first three days, there might have been around three hisses and then…they were attached at the hip. Following each other around, cuddling, getting into messes and sprinting laps around our apartment.
Salem and Casper, 2 weeks after we got Casper
There is no better feelings than to see two cats love each other with all their being. They sleep at the foot of our bed, lick each other when they’re resting, switch dinner plates while they’re in the middle of the meal, and just enjoy each other’s company.
It doesn’t feel fair that I lucked out twice with two amazing cats, let alone two cats who get along. My heart is so full being around them, watching Casper get more and more comfortable with us, and providing a safe and loving home for them.
With our birthdays coming up, (Casper is February 11th, Salem and I on February 27th), I was feeling a little bit more sentimental than usual. It is astonishing that three years have already gone by with Salem, it feels like a lifetime and also two days. Casper is the same, he adjusted so well into our home you would think him and Salem were from the same litter.
As I write this, they’re sitting in the little office with me, Salem in his tower and Casper on a chair next to me. I am so lucky.
All in all, I would be woken up in the middle night for the rest of my life to hold up the blanket for them to lay with me. I will pay any amount of money to keep them healthy, and I will do everything in my power to make sure they are safe and unconditionally loved.
I love my cats more than I love myself, and luckily for me, they love me for both of us. And if that doesn’t sum up a soul cat, I’m not sure what does.