Part I

The very first post of this blog series about encountering with and teachings by animals I dedicate to Nani, our beautiful Silver-Point Siamese that came to us on Sunday, on January 6th of this year as an eight-week-old kitten named Bella.

Bella was given to Gina, a beautiful soul who had given Bella home and rescued her from the cage of Human Society. However, Bella was too wild to live indoors in Gina’s apartment, and Gina was looking for a new home for Bella where she could play outdoors with other kittens.

That time we gained a new member of our small family of two people and three adult cats of the neighbor next door, that were visiting us each day, and staying with us the most of the time.

The new member was a male kitten that we found on my husband’s motorcycle in the morning of the New Year’s Eve. We named him Honda. It was hard to judge his age cause his body was small like a body of a kitten of eight or nine weeks, his behaving, however, seemed to belong to a more mature cat.

Honda was very sick, and he was looking for help and home. All three cats had rejected him hissing or even swatting at him. Therefore, we needed to decide if we continue to allow the neighbor’s cats visiting us or offer a home to the straying sick cat. We decided to adopt Honda. And we also were looking for a friend and company for him. This was why we met Gina and Bella.

We renamed Bella that means beautiful in Italian into Nani that also means beautiful in the Hawaiian for we wanted to honor Gina’s good deed at rescuing her. And the name “beautiful” was a perfectly matching name for Nani for she was indeed beautiful. Her body shape and all her markings were like a most aesthetic and harmonious painting as by a magician. A friend of ours who had seen her for the first time commented, “she looks so beautiful, almost unreal.”

Nani isn’t with us anymore. She was killed by a reckless driver who speeded by his truck through our subdivision. She died in the age of eight months not having the opportunity to grow up.

But even though, Nani did not stay very long with us, she had a big impact on me and my life, and through the changes she caused me to make, she would have left a remarkable paw-print in our beautiful world.

And so this story began: We picked Nani up in Keaau, about 30 miles away from home. We worried a little bit about the long way back home for Nani hadn’t a lot of experience being transported in a car. But, she seemed to be fine as a passenger and was also curious and friendly to us and not anxious at all.

On the way hence, she suddenly got carsick, and we did not manage to stop for her in time so she threw up and more in the truck. I cleaned her up and she was friendly again.

However, after having arrived home, she got upset with the other cats and was fearless chasing them away, hissing and swatting on them. The only thing that calmed her down and that she obviously really loved was being outdoors, and smelling on things, playing in the grass, chasing insects.

Therefore, I walked her leashed in our back yard leaving her enough time to discover everything she wanted to. After it had got dark, I needed her to come in, and at that very moment, Nani decided that it was too much for her and turned instantly into an unbelievable wild and aggressive tiny cougar. Her aggressiveness hit us so unexpectedly and so hard that we were lost for appropriate response at that moment.

We were thinking hard what to do for we live very simple in a temporary living unit and could not offer her a safe, enclosed room to become familiar with everything new. All we could do was to put her into a big laundry box with plenty of holes for good ventilation and kept her there offering her water and food hoping her excitement will pass by soon.

She drank, ate and hissed at us again. She stayed in this wild mood. One time trying to put a harness on her to walk her in the yard, we experienced such a remarkable fight that we were close to call Gina and ask her to bring Nani back to her.

Nani stayed this way for about two days. We had not been able to approach her closer than three or four feet. She would have hissed, swatted, and even jumped towards us attacking anything coming closer to her. It was kind of odd to see her postures for she was so small!

Little Nani was fearless and would have taken chances to get free again. However, after two days kitten-like sounds came out of the laundry box. It seemed that Nani has arrived home.

At the same day, we decided to set her free, and she instantly used her freedom exploring her entire new territory on our place and beyond it. Of course, she forced me to work on my faith in her, she would stay safe and come back home. But, she did. She came back home to eat and my confidence, everything would turn well with Nani, grew.

After over a year having the neighbor’s cats visiting us every day two of those cats quit showing up at our place. Only Buddy tried to go along with Honda and Nani.

After a few days exploring the neighborhood, it seemed that Nani has satisfied her curiosity. She stayed more around our place. Also, a friendship between her and Honda started to develop nicely.

While Nani was captured in the laundry box hissing and swatting against the walls, Honda was assisting and helping her sitting for hours quietly at the side of the box. This was really touching seeing that! He was obviously supporting her.

After she had regained her freedom, she still hissed at him but her hissing was not so hard and powerful anymore. Soon both kittens started to play with each other. Honda was a quite bit overwhelmed with Nani’s games for she was extremely creative and smart, and Honda – we were guessing that – never really played with his siblings. Also, his condition worsened so much that we needed to meet a vet.

At the beginning of February, a new kitten showed up at our place and stayed looking for help and home. We called her Lani cause of her beautiful big blue eyes. She was very sick, in fact, close to dying. But I put all my faith in my fresh trained skills as a Reiki practitioner and gave her Reiki on four following days and also a nice warm rub with Epsom Salt solution. The result was remarkable. Four days after I started with this treatment, Lani showed up to eat together with the others.

In the beginning, Lani was very uncertain about how to behave. She obviously did not possess good playing skills. Therefore, she was hissing or hiding and watching the other two playing. However, after about two weeks Lani was completely integrated, and Nani and Lani were best friends running, playing and doing crazy jumps. It was such a joy to watch them! Also, Honda joined them as soon as he was feeling better.

But there was another hazard showing up. Nani was extremely interested in Buddy. She even followed him towards the road what was dangerous for he crossed the road at that we lived a few times a day. Click here to continue reading.

I hope you enjoyed this part of Nani’s journey. If you are curious about what will come next, join me in the following part of this story.

Sending much Love and Light your way!
Aloha, Jenna