My husband and I decided to get a kitten together. We knew it would be a lot of work – like having a child. There would be things we needed to teach it: how to use the litter box, eat from a bowl, etc.
A kitten we named Barley joined our family. When he arrived, he was only 1.5 months old. To our surprise, within days, he had learned to use the litter box and began eating on his own—and didn’t scratch up any of our furniture! He’s a good boy!
A year later, Barley had grown up. He hardly ever came to us to sleep or be petted; he only ate and played with us when asked. If something didn’t suit him (like if he was starving), he would bite us painfully. Around this time, my husband and I learned that we would have a baby.
We moved to a bigger apartment, and Barley was nervous at first. But he got used to it quickly—except that he started having accidents with his litter box. This is not unusual for cats when they move to a new home.
Then my daughter was born! I was in the hospital all week, and during that time, Barley missed me and stopped eating well. So when we finally came home with our baby girl, things got interesting…
When the baby arrived home, he wondered about the new life of joining our family. He followed her everywhere, even hopping into her crib occasionally. I needed to discourage this and frequently chased him away from his sister’s bed.
In general, we paid less attention to him and often scolded him for trying to climb onto baby things – before, there had been no issue with him on chairs or beds. Earlier, there were no complaints about his behavior in general.
But suddenly, Barley became offended by us ignoring him and sought revenge by scratching up our door whenever he could.
It took me a while to figure out that he was doing these things because we kept yelling and criticizing him. He can’t tell us in words that he’s feeling bad, so this was his way of getting our attention. We didn’t realize it at the time, and we were too angry and exhausted to try and understand him.
My daughter eventually became allergic to the cat as time passed, so we decided it would be best to give him to someone else who could take care of him. I was unfortunate and cried a lot. They took Barley to live with another family that already had two cats.
We visited our pet in his new home several times within the first year. And then, we started to correspond through letters with the new owner instead. Whenever we would return to the apartment where he lived, He’d get ecstatic at the sight of us, run towards his food bowl, and then to us- repeating this cycle every minute. I had tears in my eyes because I wanted him back home with us, but it wasn’t possible.
Again it took some time, and my daughter’s allergies slowly began to pass. We rarely corresponded with the new mistress of our Barley. I no longer had any hope of taking him back home.
It was a sweltering night in June. We returned from my parents’ village after a week-long vacation, and as soon as we got to our yard, I saw a familiar tail wagging behind the next door. Sure enough, it was him – our Barley!
He remembered us and our home after being gone for two years. When we found him and brought him home, he was hungry, looking around, and skinny – but I immediately recognized him. I cried like a little girl when I saw her meow in response to our call. He was exhausted and afraid to come near us, but we managed to lure him home with sausages.
About 30 minutes later, he strutted into the living room and lay down in the middle of the floor as if he owned the place. Then he came over to my daughter and me and took a chunk out of each of us – apparently, his way of getting revenge for what we’d done. After that, he went to bed.
It’s been five years, but I remember that incident every time I see him sitting on the windowsill looking out at the world. We don’t even know how long he spent outside back then.
We entrusted our cat to good people, but he was abandoned. Our cat found his way home two years later and hasn’t forgotten us.
