On Christmas night 2004, I met a sweet Siamese mix near the hotel lobby when I was vacationing with my mother in Thailand. She was playful, talkative, and looked relatively robust. I picked her up and patted her head. She kissed and rubbed me, just like what my kitty would often do when I held her (I adopted Mae-ling, also a Siamese mix, from Tree House in fall 2003).

The next morning, I met the curious visitor again when I was having breakfast. I greeted the kitty and fed her some bread and milk. I also found a minor skin infection on one of her front paws. She had lost some fur and the wound I failed to notice yesterday was now quite obvious in daylight. I went back to the room and got some h and sanitizer to clean her wound. She complained and gently bit my fingers, but she had been such a good girl by cooperating all the way through the pain and discomfort.

We parted, and Mom and I were heading to the beach. I decided to buy some postcards at the nearby beachfront store. While I was choosing, Mom yelled with the crowd and I went out to look. The beach was covered with raging water, all the parasols and chairs were swept away, and the main road was flooded. In retrospect, if we had been to the beach early, without meeting the cat, we could have been in very perilous conditions. My mother does not know how to swim.

 

After the tsunami, the hotel staff told us they had not seen the cat again. Mae-ling, my Siamese mix at home, also had similar skin infectionon her front paw a month after I adopted her. I took her back to Tree House and it was taken care of. There are just so many coincidences that lead me to think that the cat in Thail and was sent somehow to get me and my mom out of danger. I hope the lucky cat I briefly met is doing fine. Getting out of the tsunami unscathed with her help was quite lucky, but being a cat lover and companion is even a more fortunate and heartening experience. Thank you, kitties!

Alan Chan