My family lives in the countryside, and my parents are fruit farmers. We’ve raised all kinds of cats.
Since I can remember, I’ve known that my mother loves cats and dogs. All the neighbors around also know that “Ah San (my mother’s name) loves cats and dogs”.
When I was a child, my father didn’t like cats; in fact, he even hated them and would hit them. When a cat was caught stealing food by my father, it would be beaten severely. One time that left the deepest impression on me was when a cat pooped in the house, and it smelled really bad. My father grabbed the cat and threw it outside. It was raining heavily outside, and my father threw the cat very, very far with great force. You could tell he was really angry. My mother and I dared not say a word beside him…
In a blink of an eye, more than twenty years have passed, and there has always been a cat in our family. In the countryside, people usually raise cats to catch mice, but that’s not the case in our family. It’s just because my mother likes them.
Now, looking at my father, he has become a cat person. Even when a cat jumps onto the table to snatch the food from his hand during a meal, he will only say, “Okay, okay, here you go,” and then say to my mother, “Look at it.”
As for my mother, I think she should write a book like “A Guide to Fancy Cat – Petting”. There are countless stories of cats catching mice and lizards for my mother. They’ve even caught snakes. Every time we talk about these things, it’s full of joy.
This is the cat that we raised the longest. She can be considered the third – generation cat (with a cold and regal demeanor). We raised her for about thirteen or fourteen years. She passed away last year, having lived a full life. My mother said that in her last days, she had dementia. She would either sleep or just follow my mother around. Wherever my mother went, she would go. She slept at my mother’s feet at night, and my father didn’t mind. And she was crazy about fried food. In the end, my mother buried her with her own hands.
The second – generation cat was a tabby cat, but it was so long ago that there are no photos.
In fact, whether we admit it or not, these cats are all members of our family. Every time I call home, we talk about the cats and dogs. And my mother even makes the cat “talk” to me. She pinches the cat’s paw to make it meow for me to hear. My father and my younger brother also send me some photos of the cats occasionally.
This is the current one, the fourth – generation cat (soft – voiced, delicate, and easily pettable) and her kittens.
All in all, cats have brought a lot of joy to our family.
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