It was mid-April the first time we heard the singing. My husband and I were outside in our backyard, chatting about the thousands of small details we still needed to accomplish after making the cross country move from Philadelphia to Houston a few months prior.

A feline noise sounding sad and scared, and quite possibly hurt, surprised us out of the blue. It was mournful and urgent and sad. It sounded like giving up, or maybe calling pitifully for help. It resonated with emotions of both fear and solemn acceptance. It could be a last dramatic goodbye tinged with an elusive bit of hope. Hope that someone would care. Care enough to wonder and investigate.

It was a cry for help.

We jumped up from the table, walking around our house and yard trying to find the source of the noises. He or she was very close, but we couldn’t find an injured cat, or injured animal of any kind.

There are no basements in Houston homes. Houses are built up on stilts or cinder blocks off the ground in case of flooding, and most homes have barriers between the house and the ground to discourage critters from taking up residence under your dwelling. Ours appeared to be impenetrable to an animal the size of a cat, but it was the only place we could imagine the sounds coming from.
We got on our hands and knees, shining flashlights under the house, but no kitty could be seen.
There was no doubt to either of us that this was a cat.

Almost immediately after we began our search, the cries stopped, and we didn’t hear anything else that day. It was frustrating and nerve-wracking, wondering if there was a cat whose life had ebbed away without us being able to help. I felt that I had let this living creature down.

But that was not the end. It was only the beginning.

The mournful song interrupted daily life intermittently over the next few weeks, sometimes in the morning, sometimes at night. The sounds always felt sad and hurt, lonely and hungry. I worried often about this cat, feeling a gnawing worry in the pit of my stomach at the sounds, but also happy each time I heard them. As the weeks went by, I began to hear the song with a different perspective. They didn’t sound like life or death to me any longer. They were just deeply sad, like the way a truly gifted blues singer can speak to your soul and bring tears to your eyes. It gripped my heart in an emotional fist of maternal instinct.

One May evening I glanced out our front window and got a surprise. A beautiful tabby cat was stretched out on the railing on our front porch as if he or she owned the place. I was certain this must be the source of the wails, so I excitedly opened the door to say hello!

As the door swung open, the cat jumped down and ran away so fast that I almost doubted that I had seen it in the first place. I couldn’t believe anything could move like that.

In an instant, he or she was gone.

I assumed that the cat belonged to someone in the neighborhood. I’m not used to seeing stray cats, even though our current Princess Penelope had been one herself before she was rescued and deemed adoptable.

My assumptions were wrong, however. Just as many assumptions I made over the period of the next several months were wrong and right and everything in between. And soon I came to realize that this cat, this mournful singer, had many things to teach me. Since that first soul-wrenching song, I have been blessed with many lessons on life, love, and leadership. Lessons that I am so thankful for. Lessons that a cat named Fred still teaches me every day. Click Here For Lesson