How many teachers have you had in your life? I believe that if we pay attention, most people we meet have something valuable to teach us. Not just people, either - in fact, some of my most powerful teachers have been animals. Today I'd like to tell you about Samson and the important lessons he taught me.

　My beautiful cat Casper had just died at only fifteen months old. My roommate and I were devastated. Our whole apartment ached with Casper's absence. Two weeks after his death, our landlord Bob caught a feral kitten whose mother had given birth in Bob's shed. It's a rough life for a feral cat on the streets of Seoul, and Bob wanted to know if we would take the kitten. My roommate, Jimalee, was too grief-stricken to be more than lukewarm about the idea, but I said yes anyway, and Bob brought the kitten over.

　He was an orange-and-white tabby, about two-and-a-half months old and very grubby from his hardscrabble existence. The insides of his ears were black with dirt. He hissed and cowered in the corner of his carrier and glared at me with hate-filled eyes. I had no idea what to do with him, so I went online and researched how to tame feral kittens.

　Guided by the information I found, I put him in a cage in the living room so he could get used to us. I couldn't make eye contact with him without sending him into a state of pure, bright terror, so I avoided looking at him directly. I spent a lot of time sitting by his cage and talking to him with my face averted. He was so traumatized after being ripped away from his mother and siblings. It must have felt like an alien abduction. So we sat there together, both heartbroken and unable to reach out to each other, while Jimalee withdrew into her own heartbreak. We were a miniature archipelago of grief.

　After a couple of days, I moved to the next phase. I wrapped him tightly in a towel until only his terrified little head poked out. Then I put him on my lap facing away from me as I spoke soothingly, and I began to gently stroke the top of his head with one finger. Instantly, he stopped struggling and became very still. Everything in him seemed focused on my touch. We stayed like that for a long time. I could feel his terror and sorrow and loneliness, his desperate need not to be alone and afraid anymore. And he let me help him. He let me in. And that helped me more than I could have imagined possible.

　The next few weeks were a delicate pro-cess of acclimatization. For a while, if Jimalee or I moved too suddenly or talked too loudly, he would hide under the nearest piece of furniture. But really, he became mine and I became his in that moment when he first accepted my touch.

　When we took him to the vet, he resisted mightily, and our vet clipped his claws short so that he couldn't inflict major damage. After Dr. Kwon finished examining our new kitten, we mentioned that we hadn't yet chosen a name. Dr. Kwon thought for a moment and then said, "You know, he struggled so much at first, but when I cut his claws, he gave up. He lost his power. Why not call him Samson?" And that is how Samson became Samson.

　Samson became a most loving and gentle cat. He loved me and Jimalee, and he loved his little brother Dylan, whom we brought home a couple of months after Samson. Later, when I moved with the cats to Texas, he loved my husband and my mother-in-law. But he never did love my landlord Bob. He never forgave Bob for kidnapping him and always looked for opportunities to ambush him with a surgical strike. Luckily, Bob never took it personally. He did become increasingly vigilant on his visits to our apartment, though.

　Samson adored being stroked, and as soon as I started to withdraw my hand, he would grab it with both front paws and bring it to his face and hold it there. I really loved that.

　He never liked being picked up, but occasionally I would anyway. He was a very big cat, and he would stretch out into the most incredibly long shape whenever I picked him up. Then he would begin to writhe in silent, muscular desperation, and I would set him apologetically back on his feet again. What I loved about this was that as soon as I put him down, he would just stand there, right next to my leg. He would never run away.

　After his rough start, he lived a gentle life, and I believe he was happy, but he was always a rather anxious cat. Life just seemed to worry him. It worries me, too, so that was another source of connection between us. Sometimes when he was feeling anxious, he would low mournfully like a cow, and my heart would feel so full and heavy with love for him, I could hardly stand it.

　Samson was only five when he died. He became ill, and although we tried very hard to save him, we couldn't. For ten days, we fed him through feeding tubes, and I learned how to give him shots. We put our mattress on the floor so he could still climb onto the bed and sleep with us. We felt our hearts break in slow motion as we watched his light flicker and dwindle. Finally, one day, it became clear that there was no hope, and therefore no kindness in holding him here. He died staring into my eyes, and there was so much fear and pain in his, I could hardly recognize him. It took a long time for the memory of his dying eyes to soften and fade for me. For a while, I was scared that the memory of his last ten days would forever cast its mountain shadow over my memories of his short but light-filled life. But it didn't. It never does. I have learned this lesson on numerous occasions, but each time I go through a deep loss, I find it hard to believe that this time, the light will return. Yet it always does.

　This was just one of the lessons that Samson taught me. By his example, he also taught me to be brave enough to open my heart fully to love, even when doing so feels terrifying. He taught me not to let my anxiety undermine my ability to trust. Perhaps, though, the greatest lesson he taught me was the very first one, the one he offered me the day I began caring for him in the middle of my own heartbreak: that in moments of grief and suffering, it is possible to find comfort and healing in offering what solace we can to others who need it, too.

　
                                                                                              Prof. Fiona MacKenzie