Hostel's resident cat

Writing from overseas in a semester's exchange programme, I take note of the sights, sounds and smells of conservation and animal welfare issues of a foreign culture, and this caught my eye:

A glass panel superimposed with pictures of the resident cat, at my hostel. In English, the board reads "In memory of Zhi Wen's Resident Cat".

And it did tug at some heart strings because of the express softness of the message, of a community of students and hostel committee who actually paid attention to their resident cat and even went to the length to decorate its life on the wall of the lobby, to pay a tribute to it as a group, of the community spirit safeguarding the welfare of a local cat.

That, in other circumstances/contexts, would have been rendered insignificant, to be subject to culling, thanks to cat traps, to be shooed by children, to be abused by passerbys. Anything, almost any hazard, can happen to our street cats. The potential is unimaginable. Unimaginable to me, and to the many who are caring for them out there. Or rather, we dread to imagine.

To adopt a cat and have a community care for it, watch out for it... that itself is not just protecting animal welfare, but also building community camaraderie and being responsible to the natural environment that the community has claimed its stake on. The human spirit can be beautiful, oh so beautiful.