At an isolated cabin in the Appalachians, the last thing we expected to hear was a meow!
Tamar, at eight weeks old, had been dumped in Pisgah National Forest. She was alone, scared, and hungry, but managed after two days without food to find people, scrabbling onto our porch and begging for food, attention, and love.
She spent the next few hours alternating between purring on my lap, purring at her food bowl, and purring on my lap again. Her terrible experience had done nothing to dim the love in her heart, and very soon our plans to foster her turned into plans to keep her.
She had so much fur between her toes that we thought she was polydactyl, but as she grew, the truth emerged. First her tail poofed up, leading to her adolescent nickname of “Appalachian Squirrel Cat,” and by the time she was full grown she boasted a luxurious long coat, complete with tufted ears.
Tamar has been a miracle. She’s learned to help me through panic attacks, is the only cat we’ve ever managed to leash train, and the local sports teams mysteriously have better records when she joins me on the sofa to watch the game.
Pisgah is 500,000 acres of wilderness. An abandoned kitten found the only inhabited cabin for miles - and we found a love that will last a lifetime.
CHARLOTTE, NC
