Jingles: A Story of Fear, Love, and Choosing the “Other”

 

We adopted Jingles, my daughter’s beloved cat, after learning that he had been taken in and returned by seven different homes. Seven. His file read like a history of rejection. When we met him at the shelter, he was terrified — thin, shaking, and completely withdrawn.

My young daughter looked at me and said something that stopped me in my tracks: “Mama, if we have the space and money, then we should give him a home. We’ll love him until he feels safe.”

And that was it. Jingles came home with us.

 

 

At first, he wouldn’t come out of hiding. For two months, he lived under my son’s bed. He barely ate and was too afraid to face the world.

I’ll admit — I was scared of him as well. Jingles is a black cat. Like many African mothers, I grew up with deep-rooted myths and fears about black cats: that they bring bad luck, they are omens, they are connected to spiritual danger.

I avoided my son’s room because of the generations of whispers and warnings in my head. The fear wasn’t truly mine. It was inherited. It was cultural. It was survival-based. And it also was unexamined.

Then Jingles, a small trembling creature, started to teach me.

Slowly, over the next few months, he began to trust. He emerged from under the bed. He sat quietly on windowsills. He approached my kids gently for pets. He eventually climbed on my daughter’s lap like he’d always belonged there. Then one day — out of nowhere — he curled up beside me.

I froze. And then I melted.

I realized that my fear had never been about him. It was about the stories I’d been told. The stories that taught me to be afraid of what is dark, different, mysterious, or unwanted.

As someone who works in healing trauma, I ask: isn’t that the same fear that drives people to ignore the homeless? To turn away from survivors? To fear the “others”?

Jingles taught me that fear lives in the stories we tell ourselves — often based on nothing specific or relevant.

 

In our home, Jingles now walks proudly. He takes up space. He knows he’s loved. And in his healing, he has healed something in me.

My daughter’s wisdom opened the door, but it was Jingles who taught that:

• Love and understanding can cure fear.
• Fear isolates. Love integrates.
• If we only love the ones who are easy to love, we are missing the point.

The story of Jingles reminds me every day that we are called to be part of the healing of “others” — those who have been thrown away, misunderstood, or feared. It is our responsibility as fellow beings to rewrite inherited narratives and to sit with what we don’t understand until it becomes familiar and tender.

So, here’s to the black cats. To the relatives who have been unserved, underserved, marginalized, silenced, unseen. To the forgotten ones. To the “others.” To the ones who have been sent back seven times, but are still able to choose trust.

Jingles has reminded me to be patient and to look at the humanity in everyone, despite their current situation. Love and connection heal.

 

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