The Cat with Nine Lives
Everybody has heard the phrase, the cat with nine lives. While at one point it was meant to describe cats that had some magical force, the phrase is now used to refer to cats that are lucky to survive a lot of bad luck. Well, I would like to tell you a story of a cat that did have nine lives.
The cats name was Angel and he belonged to my grandmother. He was a very spry, very active cat and always seemed to be up to trouble. One day my grandmother was cooking dinner, and somehow Angel managed to get his paw stuck in the oven door. Grandma tried everything she could to get him out, but it seemed like he was in there for good. The oven was getting hotter and hotter and my grandmother thought that was the end of her cat.
But surprisingly, the oven door came loose and Angel jumped out with no signs of having been burned. Not only that, but he seemed totally unharmed. My grandmother was amazed and declared that it was a miracle, to which we all agreed.
This was the first of Angels nine lives. Over the years, we witnessed more and more of his remarkable recoveries from seemingly deadly accidents. He would always come out of it unscathed, as though protected by some unseen force. We all came to believe that Angel truly did have nine lives, just like his name suggested.
Angel went on living a long and happy life with my grandmother, which was its own sort of miracle. He saw ten Christmases and celebrated his fifteenth birthday a few weeks before his death. All that was left of Angels nine lives was one, and he used it right up to the very end.
And that gives me a small sense of comfort when I think about him now. Angel had nine chances to live, and he used every one of them. He had far more luck than most cats get—or people, for that matter. He made the absolute most of whatever luck he had, and that alone makes him an inspiration to me.
