Don't Worry, Be Grumpy

Kit-Cat

This is a true story of a remarkable cat that lived in Bodhinyana Monastery, sixty-five kilometers south of Perth, where I live.

Kit-Cat was born in my monastery, her mother being a feral cat that lived in the adjacent state forest. We discovered her as an abandoned and hungry little kitten, sheltering in a hollow log.

As Kit-Cat grew, she started to catch small birds. We tried hanging a bell around her neck, but this only succeeded in training her to move with more stealth, so the bell made no sound. Although the monks loved little Kit-Cat, she was catching more poor birds, so sadly we realized she had to go. An Australian forest is not the right environment for a domestic cat.

I found a nice home for Kit-Cat in the oceanside suburb of Watermans Bay to the north of Perth. On the day that Kit-Cat left, I picked her up, put her in a sack, and placed her in the back of her new owner’s car, in the place where your feet usually go. I felt guilty doing this to a cat that had trusted me.

Chris, the new owner, drove the cat straight to her home in Watermans Bay, took the sack inside her house, and only released Kit-Cat after all the doors had been closed. She wanted Kit-Cat to get accustomed to her new family before letting her out into the garden.

Three days later, on a hot Saturday afternoon, she let Kit-Cat into the garden. Immediately, Kit-Cat ran for the garden gate, and Chris tried to stop her, but the cat was too fast. Kit-Cat leapt over the gate and out into the street. Chris got into her car and drove around the neighborhood looking for Kit-Cat but found no trace. Kit-Cat had disappeared.

At this point, you are probably thinking that Kit-Cat eventually found her way back home to my monastery, eighty-five kilometers away. If so, you are wrong. Kit-cat was far too smart to walk such a long distance.

That Saturday I was on teaching duty in our city center located in Nollamara, seventy-eight kilometers north of my monastery and around twelve kilometers southeast of Water-mans Bay. While passing by the thick, closed wooden door of our Perth temple, I heard a strange noise outside. When I opened the door, there was little Kit-Cat looking up at me and mewing. As I cradled her to bring her inside, I noticed that her paws were burning hot. It was over forty degrees Celsius (105º Fahrenheit!) outside that day. I gave her saucer after saucer of milk, she was so dehydrated. Then I let her do what cats do best, curl up and rest.

Soon after Kit-Cat arrived, I received a phone call from a very apologetic Chris. “I’m so sorry, Ajahn Brahm. I let your cat out and it bolted. I’ve been driving around looking for her for almost two hours. I’m so sorry. Maybe she’ll find her way back to your monastery in Serpentine.”

“No worries, Chris,” I replied. “Kit-Cat is here with me in Nollamara.”

I remember Chris gasping. She couldn’t believe it. She later came to check for herself. Kit-Cat had found me in a big city she had never been to before. She had run at least twelve kilometres in just under two hours, crossing a major motorway and other busy roads, with no maps and unable to ask for directions, to the one person who cared for her in a city of over a million.

Kit-Cat had only left our monastery once, to go to the local vet to be “monasticized” so she wouldn’t have any kittens. She had never been close to the sprawling Perth metropolitan area before; she was a country cat. When she left my monastery, it was in a sack on the floor in the back seat. There was no way she could have seen where she was going. Yet the clever cat found me!

Of course, after that Kit-Cat came back to my monastery, where she lived many happy years. After twenty-two years of cat life, she died there and is buried under the holy bodhi tree by our main hall.