Susan Finden - Casper the Commuting Cat - The True Story of the Cat Who Rode the Bus and Stole Our Hearts

I’m not alone in thinking this, of course. As the letters and messages started to pour in from around the world, I quickly recognized that loss knows no geographical boundaries. Many people told me about their pets, but one young girl really touched me with her story of those she had loved and who had sadly passed on.

Dear Sue –

I hope that you don’t mind me writing to you at a time when you are probably still very upset about Casper When I was six, me and my little brother went to a cat rescue centre and got three kittens. They were all so beautiful – although they were very different from each other, they were from the same family. Molly was tiny and like grey velvet, Freddie was much bigger with grey and white stripes, and Oscar was a tabby. They all had really different personalities too – when we got them all home, they were too small to climb the stairs, but they soon got really naughty and Oscar would take a running leap from one end of the room to the other and claw his way up my mum’s back! Freddie liked to make holes underneath the sofas for them all to hide, but Molly was the one I loved most. She chattered away all the time and we used to pretend she was moaning about things. She was such a dainty little lady, about half the size of her brothers, and she would disappear for ages, only coming back when she felt like it, with lots of complaining to do – and sometimes smelling of perfume! We wondered where she went and whether she had another life somewhere.

As I got older, I told her all my worries – when I was bullied at school when a teacher hit me, when my mum was ill. When she didn’t come back one day, we weren’t too worried as she did like disappearing, but the days started to add up and it was soon a week since she had been home. It didn’t feel right and I tried to make myself strong, thinking I would never see her again. I was right. I came home from school one day and my mum told me that my gran had found Molly’s body close to a main road. It seemed that she had been hit by a lorry. My dad carried her home and I thought my heart would break. I couldn’t believe that I’d never see her again, that I hadn’t say ‘goodbye’, that I hadn’t realized she was going to die. I just wanted to hold her one last time.

I missed her so much, and I vowed to love Oscar and Freddie even more. We moved house a few years later and the boys went to stay with my grandparents until we settled in. Although we were moving to the country with hills out our back door, and the North Sea and beach out the front, there was also a busy road. Freddie and Oscar stayed with my gran and grandad for a while as we built our new house – I wished they had stayed there forever, because within weeks of coming back to us, Freddie was run over I couldn’t believe it had happened again, and all the hurt I had felt with Molly came back.

We then got two kittens to keep Oscar company – Trixie and Lola. Although they were feral, they liked to stay at home, and I was so glad. Oscar did go out, and my heart was in my mouth every morning wondering whether he would make it home, so I was glad that the girls were safe. It turned out that they weren’t as safe as I’d hoped. When she was only eight months old, Trixie started to get very sick. She was crying in pain and unable to eat. We took her to the vet who said that there was a lump in her stomach, which felt as though she had swallowed something, but that she was too weak for an operation. She was put on a drip until she got stronger and when they did open her up, found that she had swallowed an ear plug. She never recovered and there was so much internal damage that she had to be put to sleep. I felt so angry – why did some people manage to keep their pets for so long when ours kept dying? We were good people, we gave them loving homes and were always kind, so why did this keep happening? All of the losses had been too much, so we got a dog in the hope that we could have more control. Jojo was the most beautiful Weimaraner – he wasn’t very clever though, and he fell madly in love with Lola despite the fact that she spent most of her time hitting him! He didn’t seem to mind and would just gaze at her as she would lazily lie there just slapping him over and over! She was very like Molly and I felt very close to her When mum took Jojo for a walk up into the hills, Lola would often trot along behind them the whole way, and when she came back for an exhausted sleep, Jojo would just stare at her lovingly! I finally felt that things were working out with our pets, and as we packed for Christmas in Florida, was happy that the cats were going to a woman we knew, and Jojo was going to stay with his mum and sister. I don’t know what it was, but when there was a knock at our door, my heart sank. It was almost as if I had been too happy – where was Jojo? There was a man there, talking to my dad, and I knew something was wrong. Jojo had got out and been hit by a car All of these cats and now our dog; I didn’t know if I could cope with losing one after the other and I felt that I didn’t want to.

It sounds awful but, after that, I felt as if I was just waiting for something to happen to Lola or Oscar A few months later, when I went out to wait on the bus to high school, I looked across the road and saw a ball of fur, long hair, black and white. I just knew it was her, I just knew it was Lola. She had only started going out at night since Jojo had died, and, as I ran inside crying, I felt as if this was always going to happen. We still have Oscar and I love him so much, but I want him to stay inside all the time, which probably isn’t fair for a cat. I don’t want any more pets ever It hurts too much. You give them all your love, tell them all your secrets, then someone is so thoughtless, so heartless, that they run them over without thinking just how much they are tearing a family apart.

Cats are so independent and I wonder whether we just have to pay a price for having them in our lives. They go away and do things we know nothing about, but, for all we know, they could be facing danger constantly. Although I want to love another cat, I feel as if I can’t risk it – there are only so many times I can have my heart broken. I know that you will always miss Casper and I hope that it doesn’t hurt so much after a while – the pain never goes away, but sometimes you can manage to forget.

Evie, 14, Aberdeenshire

This letter made me cry so much – there was such a lot of pain in it. It was written by a girl who obviously loved her pets enormously but who was having to face up to the hard facts of losing them, one after another.

I knew exactly what she meant when she said that it seemed so unfair that some people managed to keep their pets for years despite not really loving or looking after them I’ve seen animals treated with such cruelty but they still love their owners, still hope for a bit of kindness, and those owners don’t seem to realize how blessed they are to have those creatures in their lives. Yet here was this poor young girl facing up to the loss of so many in such a short time. If people could only see that they are privileged to have animals in their lives and make the most of them when they are there. Many of us would do anything to have a few more moments with the ones who continue to hold our hearts even though they have passed on.

I try to reply to everyone who gets in touch about Casper, but this was a tricky one. I told this young girl that I really appreciated her taking the time to write and share her thoughts, but that I was sad reading about her pain. I wished that I could give her a simple reason why God takes our cherished pets away so suddenly, but I couldn’t. I suppose He has the answer, but whatever that reason may be, it still seems terribly unfair.