I’ve got no boundaries when it comes to my cats. Lately, Phoebe has been extremely clingy with me. Over the weekend, she literally followed me around everywhere, and I mean everywhere – when I shower, when I eat, when I clean, when I pray and when  sleep.

Her spot in my room is my pillow. She takes up the entire pillow and I have to sleep beneath the pillow to give her ample space for beauty sleep. I think Joe found our bond to be quite odd, especially when he first moved in, but he’s probably used to it by now haha.

The thing about Phoebe that sets her apart from all my other cats is that I know she loves me the most compared to the rest of the family. When I come home form work, I only need to call her name once and she’ll be home right away (I have no idea where she lepaks the entire day). When I carry her, she hugs me like how a baby would cling to a parent. She literally won’t stop kissing my face if we haven’t seen each other in a while. (FYI she’s into Game of Thrones – will not flinch until the show is over).

She’s 5 years old this year and I remember like it was yesterday when Nina picked her up from her first home. I sometimes like to joke that Phoebe doesn’t understand Bahasa because she’s from England. When Nina and I were housemates in Brighton, we got bored and decided to adopt a cat. So we looked up on Gumtree and found a lady that lived nearby wanted to give away her newborn kittens. We visited the house and met all the other cats. When we saw phoebe, we knew we had to have her. She was perfect.

I had a lot of time to bond with B during the summer break because nina went home and I had to stay in the UK. When we first met her, she was so timid and quiet, but when she came home with us, she was utter chaos. She practically climbed on everything she could grip on (including my leg when I was cooking), ran over anything that got in her way, dug up the trash when she had nothing else to do and had a knack of following me whenever I went to the bathroom.

One time, she went missing, Nina and I panicked because the window was slightly open (we thought she committed suicide guys), but it turned out she snuck out while we were bringing our groceries in and one of our neighbours found her. There was a note on the main hall pin board that said ‘WE FOUND A BLACK CAT, PLEASE COME TO XXX). We felt sooo embarrassed when we picked her up but we were glad she didn’t dive out the apartment.

Taking care and being friends with B was and still is so much fun. As she grew up, she turned out to be the sweetest cat ever. I didn’t have a lock for my room door, so if I’m not up by 10am, she will push the door and start licking my face until I’m awake. If I went out, she will always wait for me on the spiral stairs of the apartment. I had a constant companion while I was finalising my dissertation, as Phoebe kept me sane. She was my best friend, and I knew I had to bring her home.

Now that she’s in Malaysia, her personality changed a bit. She is less active compared to how she was like in England. She tends to poop wherever she finds convenient and the people at home are not very happy about it. So for the past few weeks, I had to re-train her again and keep her in a cage every night to make sure she knows where she can do her business.

Pooping problem or not, whenever I look at phoebe, I know that she loves me and I know that she knows that I love her. She’s a constant reminder that I should always stay humble and that everyone has responsibilities that needs to be honoured.

Lessons learnt with Phoebe:

1. Feed your pets first before you feed yourself. My mom always said ‘please don’t forget to buy cat food otherwise your cats will puasa sunat’
2. Animals have feelings too, always be kind to them.
3. Cats are loyal animals, they know who took care of them while they were growing up.

Thanks B, my pillow is your pillow too. Just don’t poop on it okay.