More Than a Cat: What Olive Taught Me About Love

25 February 2024.

I adopted Olive.

I didn't meet her first.

Cats Protection asked me whether I would like to come and meet her before deciding.

I said no.

Absolutely not.

There was no need.

I had already decided.

That probably tells you something about me.

Or perhaps, more accurately, it tells you something about how little I knew about what was about to happen.

Olive had been advertised by Cats Protection Trafford with the wonderfully dramatic headline:

“Jeepers Creepers… Where Did You Get Those Peepers?”

It was an appropriate introduction.

Olive is jet black, with the greenest, most extraordinary emerald eyes. The kind of eyes that seem to look through you rather than simply at you.

Although even her appearance came with a story.

When she was first rescued, her coat had apparently been so affected by the condition of her skin that the people caring for her couldn't even confidently determine what colour she originally was. The best guess was that she may have been a very dark tortoiseshell.

Her veterinary records tell their own story.

She was frightened.

She was difficult to handle.

She resented restraint.

Blood tests were challenging. Veterinary procedures were challenging. Medication was sometimes needed simply to make handling possible.

She had suffered significant skin problems, including miliary dermatitis, and the vets suspected feline atopic syndrome — essentially an underlying allergic skin condition that might require ongoing management.

And then there was the rather extraordinary episode when she was taken in for what was supposed to be a routine spay, only for the vets to discover that they couldn't find a uterus.

There are pieces of Olive's life that I will never know.

And perhaps that's the point.

Because I didn't rescue her from her past.

I simply became part of what came next.

What Olive, My Cat, Has Taught Me About Love

I had imagined the usual things.

Food.

Water.

A litter tray.

A few toys.

A warm bed.

Veterinary care.

And, naturally, lots of cuddles.

I had even been told that Olive liked Whiskas poultry pouches in jelly.

She has never touched one.

Not once.

Olive is an extraordinarily fussy eater — although apparently I am not allowed to complain about that because, according to every cat owner I've ever met, this is simply part of the job description.

But nothing — absolutely nothing — prepared me for Olive.

Because somewhere between putting food into a bowl and becoming responsible for another living creature, something happened that I hadn't anticipated.

I fell completely in love with her.

And then I discovered something rather inconvenient.

Love can make you frightened.

I discovered separation anxiety

I had always considered myself someone who understood the real world.

I had lived.

I had worked.

I had travelled.

I had experienced difficult things.

I thought I knew myself.

Then I got Olive.

Suddenly, leaving the house became an operation.

It can take me at least half an hour to leave.

The cameras are checked.

The food is checked.

The water is checked.

Everything is checked again.

And then, quite possibly, checked once more.

Six cameras watch over the house.

Not because Olive is particularly interested in security.

Because I am.

I have discovered that leaving someone you love behind can produce an extraordinary amount of anxiety when that someone cannot tell you that they are okay.

And Olive, of course, doesn't understand my elaborate security protocols.

She doesn't know that I have checked the cameras.

She doesn't know that I've checked her water.

She doesn't know that I've worried about whether she's eaten.

She certainly doesn't know that I have probably looked at her little face on a camera when I should have been concentrating on something else.

She is simply being Olive.

And perhaps that is one of the first things she taught me.

Love doesn't mean ownership

Before Olive, I think I had a rather conventional idea of love.

If you love someone, you care for them.

You give to them.

You protect them.

You want to be close to them.

And, somewhere underneath all of that, there can be an expectation that the love will come back in a recognisable form.

Olive has completely dismantled that idea.

Because just because I love her doesn't mean she owes me anything.

I feed her.

I care for her.

I pay her vet bills.

I worry about her.

I buy things she completely ignores.

I provide warmth, safety and a home.

And yet none of those things entitle me to a cuddle.

If Olive doesn't want to be picked up, she doesn't want to be picked up.

If she doesn't want to sit beside me, she doesn't.

If she wants to walk away, she walks away.

And if I were to give myself marks out of ten for being a "good cat owner" based on how affectionate she is towards me, I would probably fail miserably.

But that's the point.

Love isn't a transaction.

I don't get to say:

"I have done all these things for you, therefore you should behave in the way I want you to."

She has taught me that caring for another being does not make you their owner in the emotional sense.

You can provide the safest home in the world and still have to respect another creature's boundaries.

You can love someone desperately and still have to let them be themselves.

And sometimes the most loving thing you can do is not ask for anything back.

And then there are the moments

The funny thing about Olive is that, just when I think I have accepted all of this, she does something that stops me completely.

She jumps onto my bed at exactly the moment I need her.

She walks into a room when I've been thinking about her.

She appears beside me seemingly out of nowhere.

There are moments when the timing is so extraordinary that I can't help wondering whether there is something more to it.

I do believe Olive is naturally psychic.

Perhaps that's ridiculous.

Perhaps it's simply that we become attuned to the beings we live with.

Perhaps we notice patterns we would otherwise overlook.

Or perhaps there are forms of communication that don't require language at all.

I don't know.

But I do know that there have been moments with Olive that have felt like synchronicity rather than coincidence.

And somehow, with a jet-black cat whose birthday sits right on the edge of Halloween, it seems rather fitting.

Her records give her date of birth as 30 October 2020.

I have a feeling she may actually have been born on the 31st.

I can't prove it.

But I rather like the idea.

A black cat.

Emerald eyes.

A mysterious past.

A Halloween birthday.

And an uncanny ability to appear at exactly the right moment.

Maybe Olive was always going to be Olive.

She wasn't the cat I thought I was adopting

And perhaps that's why I didn't need to meet her.

I wasn't looking for a particular type of cat.

I wasn't looking for a cuddly cat.

I wasn't looking for a perfectly behaved cat.

I wasn't looking for a cat who would fit neatly into my expectations.

I just saw her.

And somehow, that was enough.

What I didn't know then was that I wasn't simply bringing a cat into my home.

I was bringing another consciousness into my life.

Another little being with her own history, fears, preferences, boundaries, moods, habits and strange little ways of communicating.

I couldn't change what happened to Olive before she came to me.

I couldn't undo whatever made her frightened.

I couldn't give her back the years before I knew her.

But I could give her something else.

A home where she didn't have to be frightened anymore.

And perhaps that is what love sometimes looks like.

Not rescuing someone and expecting gratitude.

Not fixing them.

Not possessing them.

Not making them into what you want them to be.

Just saying:

"You are safe here."

And then proving it, quietly, over and over again.

More than a cat

Olive has changed me.

I am more anxious because I love her.

I am more protective because I love her.

I worry about her ridiculous eating habits.

I check cameras.

I negotiate with a cat who is entirely unimpressed by my arguments.

I have learned the difference between what I want to give her and what she actually wants to receive.

And I have learned something about love that I don't think I could have learned from another person.

Love doesn't require possession.

Love doesn't require reciprocity.

Love doesn't require someone to behave in the way you expect.

Sometimes love is simply the privilege of being trusted enough to share someone's world.

And now and then, when Olive jumps onto my bed at precisely the right moment, or appears in a room when I've been thinking about her, I wonder whether perhaps she knows far more about me than I know about her.

Maybe that's the secret of Olive.

Maybe she isn't just a cat who came to live with me.

Maybe she came to teach me something.

And perhaps, after everything she had already been through, she needed a home.

But perhaps, without either of us knowing it at the time,

I needed Olive too.

A little note about Olive

Olive was adopted from Cats Protection Trafford on 25 February 2024. Her veterinary records reveal a frightened young cat with a difficult early history, significant skin problems and a strong aversion to restraint. Today she is safe, loved, thoroughly indulged — and still entirely her own person.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Susanne Kennedy Tarot

Tarot • Psychic Medium • Coachingsusannekennedy.com