Spidey and Coffee: A lesson about unconditional love

In your 20s, you will meet an animal that soon becomes your closest companion to teach you about life - you must keep them forever. For Nhi from Vietnam, it is Spidey and Coffee - the black kitties duo who keep reminding her of unconditional love, happiness, and responsibility.

From seeking only small mental support, Nhi has been a cat mom to two lovely kids for almost two years.

Doubling the happiness

The moment Nhi saw Spidey, she immediately decided to be his cat mom forever. 

Nhi’s first kid - Spidey - came to her at just the right time. After moving out of the student dormitory in Beppu, Japan, she hoped to find a “mental support”, specifically a cat, as a companion for her new life.

Quickly enough, after 2 weeks of reaching out everywhere, she met Spidey. Spidey was just around 2 weeks old when another international student found him on a street in Beppu. He was tiny, weak, and had an infection in the left eye. The students met up at the vet, where Spidey was prescribed medicine and eyedrops and handed over to Nhi.

Different from Spidey, Coffee was an “necessary” unexpectation. After 1 month of living together, Nhi found out that Spidey lacked “cat interactions” as he had been living with humans only since birth. He did not know how to meow properly, and he bit his human for fun without knowing it hurt. When she was just thinking of getting Spidey a friend, a stranger approached her unexpectedly.

And that was how Coffee became Spidey’s brother, and Nhi’s beloved kid.

“Do you want to co-parent my cat with me?” - the person asked, “I will leave the cat at your place, we raise him together, and when I leave, I will bring him with me.”

The whole request sounded odd enough to get a rejection from Nhi. After negotiation, the stranger decided to let Nhi adopt Coffee.

Cats as a mental support

They say cats can sense and absorb sadness. The crisis Nhi faced as a third-year international student from Vietnam in Japan was overwhelming: schoolwork, extracurricular activities, part-time jobs, and internships. During such a hard time, both Coffee and Spidey were so understanding and well-behaved. They took care of each other when she was away and looked after their human mom when she returned.

They never left Nhi alone, especially if she ever cried. At night, they would sleep next to Nhi and purr to soothe her stress away. Both Coffee and Spidey get along with people easily, so Nhi always felt secure to let her friends come to check in on the kitties.

After 3 months, Nhi and her kids moved to another apartment, where she had two other roommates who helped her a lot with taking care of Spidey and Coffee. The kids easily adapted to the new environment and the presence of the new “moms”. They soon became the mental support for the whole household, and sometimes for the friends that came over too.

Wherever they are, Spidey and Coffee are never a mental burden for the people around them. And Nhi is very proud of that.

“This is my first time being a (cat) mom.”

However, raising two kittens at once on one’s self at the age of 21 is never easy - more responsibility, more chores, more bills, especially for an international student. Nhi’s mom was worried about her daughter; she did not want Nhi to take on more burdens and so refused to let her keep the cats. Therefore, to take good care of the duo, Nhi can only depend on herself.

Problems come after problems. Even though Nhi had no difficulties in taking care of cats, there were still many inevitable and heavy-handed cases, especially when it came to money. Besides the necessary bills - vaccinations and neutering for both, Spidey even brought home expensive vet bills for slight illnesses, twice. The housing damage caused by the kids also required a massive amount for repair. The expenses for cat toys, cat food, an automatic water fountain, automatic feeders, and numerous other cat-related items were even more substantial.

During their dominance behavior period before neutering, Spidey and Coffee also injured their mom when she tried to intervene in the fights. But the scar treatments were too high that Nhi just accepted having permanent scars on her skin, as memories.

The ultimate love exists among all of us.

The unconditional love that forms between humans and their home pets is a matter of fact, and the one between Nhi and her feline kids is also obvious.

The most common question she gets when people know about her raising two cats at once is, “What are you gonna do with them after graduation?” The struggle of moving pets overseas is significantly complicated. Therefore, at some moments when she was insecure about her future in Japan, she would say she might give the cats to someone else.

However, it seemed like the cats understood that. They stayed with Nhi closer; they waited in front of the bathroom and the restroom; they would see her off at the door every day and greet her when she came back. They would stop playing around to follow their mom everywhere, and they would stay up until Nhi went to bed, even if it was 3 AM, 5 AM, or sleepless nights. Their considerate behaviors and the indestructible bond between Nhi and her kids had changed her mind. The decision to keep Spidey and Coffee pushed her to find a job in Japan despite its extreme difficulty.

“Leaving the country now means leaving the kids behind forever”, she said. She never gave up, and eventually, the love and motivation were so strong that she got the job she wanted and was able to keep raising Spidey and Coffee.

After almost 2 years being brought up by Nhi with full love, both Spidey and Coffee became healthy, secure, and well-being cats. From small and underweight kitties, Spidey reached 5.1kg, and Coffee is a chunky one with 7.2kg, but not obese. They can show their bellies everywhere to everyone in the household, they sleep with their humans, and never insist on going outside.

However, that is not all. Both Nhi and the kitties receive so much unconditional love from another source - Nhi’s friends. Ever since Nhi got a kitten, the number of times when her friends were willing to come over, despite the inconvenience, is countless. They might not be cat lovers, but they always insisted on taking care of the cats voluntarily. Some even bought small packs of cat food to treat Spidey and Coffee.

Now, when Nhi has to be away due to job requirements, her previous roommates are willing to take care of the cats until she can find an apartment for herself. They treat Spidey and Coffee with love and care, just the same way Nhi used to do. And the cats never forget to warm their humans up during the winter cold or soothe their stress away during their life crisis.

Message from Spidey and Coffe: Love is Strength -  Love matters

The journey of Nhi, Spidey, and Coffee has always been ultimately filled with love. The love from Nhi to the cats, the love from the cats to Nhi, and the love from their friends - all help them overcome the hardships of an independent cat mom journey.

To us humans, it is important to treat everyone with love and be open to receiving love. The world is full of complexities, and love can give us the strength to go through these. The love you give to others will find the way back to you and support you through difficulties.

Moreover, for other international students who are struggling with their independent lives while raising a pet, handling an animal on your own is not easy and requires long-term responsibilities. Therefore, do not hesitate to reach out to your loved ones for support. 

To cats, one day, there will be some humans who love you unconditionally. They will be your lifelong human parents, who provide you with full comfort, security, and happiness. It is also important that you reciprocate them in other ways - with your purr and well-being.

A story from @voids602 on Instagram