My Very Good, Very Bad Cat Page 8

  We celebrated his rescue; all but Buster, the dog.

  A quick tip from a salesman who learned from his plight,

  Remove cats from the wall before sealing it tight.

  ~Kassie Rubico

  My Healer Cat

  Fun fact: Scientific studies have shown time and time again that cats are more than just good pets. They are extremely therapeutic, and may actually be a good form of medicine for people suffering from heart conditions.

  Dancing with Joe

  Fun fact: All of a cat’s claws point the same way, so they can’t climb down a tree headfirst; they have to back down.

  As we danced to the haunting strains of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” Joe held my shoulder with a tenderness I’d never felt before, and when he caressed my cheek with his, I didn’t even mind his long whiskers tickling my skin. “This is the man I wish I could marry,” I thought.

  Two years before, my marriage of eighteen years had ended abruptly. Everything I had envisioned for my future vanished in a matter of months; I felt adrift. While my three young children and my job kept me going, my social life felt empty — almost like a nightmare that would not end. Joe changed all of that.

  There was only one problem: Joe was my orange Tabby. Handsome, devoted, brave, patient, playful, trustworthy… he possessed all those qualities and more.

  A rescue cat, Joe entered my life when he was six months old. At first, he cared more about playing with strings than anything, but by the time he turned one, he became the perfect companion. He slept by my side at night, comforted me when the kids left to visit their dad, and prompted me to continue living life in their absence — even when I didn’t feel like it — with his incessant requests for food.

  When I began the practice of dancing with Joe, he never resisted. He seemed to enjoy snuggling upright next to my chest, his front legs dangling over my right shoulder. As time progressed, and he knew what to expect, he would gladly grab my shoulder with both paws, purr, and snuggle his cheek to mine. He helped me pass the time, and the music and his deep purring began to heal my soul.

  Of course, I let Joe have his space. He wandered my two-acre woods, enjoying nature as cats do, eyeing birds with a glint in his eye and challenging any feline interloper. But one blustery winter morning, he did not return when I called him in for breakfast. “This is odd,” I thought. “Joe never misses a meal!”

  The kids and I panicked. We called his name over and over again from our front door. My son decided to venture outside. The temperature was well below zero, and we were worried about Joe surviving. I could hear my son calling for Joe as he walked the perimeter of our property. Abruptly, my son screamed for me. He had found Joe, but I could tell it wasn’t good news.

  I tossed on my heavy coat and pulled on my boots. Stumbling through snowdrifts and fallen tree limbs, I worked my way toward my son’s voice. Then I heard him. “MEOW!” Joe urgently called. My beloved cat needed me.

  My son looked straight up, his head flung back, his mouth open in shock. I followed his gaze, and there was Joe clinging to a branch, high up in an old oak tree. He shook violently, and his greenish-gold eyes expressed terror. Something, maybe the coyote I had seen recently, had chased Joe up the tree.

  No amount of coaxing could convince Joe to budge. We tried enticing him with food, but that didn’t work. Given that he was in the middle of a small forest in the dead of winter, the idea of placing a long ladder against the tree seemed impossible.

  Joe’s ordeal continued for hours. The kids cried. I wanted to, but I had to remain strong. I had to figure out how to coax Joe down from that tree. With the wind picking up and nightfall approaching, I felt sick to my stomach. How would Joe survive the night? Would he freeze to death? Would he fall asleep and plunge to his death?

  I called my elderly father for help. He loved Joe, too, so he came right over. He did the best he could. He pleaded with Joe to move, but nothing worked for him either. When he came back to the tree with a long aluminum ladder, I had to stop him. I couldn’t let a seventy-eight-year-old man try to climb a ladder stuck in a snow bank on a hill. There had to be a better way.

  Just then, a friend from work pulled in the driveway. I had forgotten he was scheduled to drop off something. Vince, a forty-eight-year-old police officer, knew something was wrong right away. He heard our shouting, and he sprinted through the snow to get to us, his six-foot, six-inch frame looking heroic.

  I had never thought of Vince as anything more than a friend. We worked on projects aimed at reducing drug use among local teens, and we had volunteered at many events together. I had heard from co-workers that he was going through a painful divorce, but if you know anything about police officers, you know they don’t talk much about their personal lives. Yet here was Vince, at my house, coming to my rescue.

  After assessing the situation, Vince took the ladder from my dad, and he positioned it against the tree. My dad held the base as Vince climbed carefully up each rung. I watched for Joe’s reaction, as he didn’t really know Vince, but the cat’s eyes didn’t look any more fearful than before. He actually seemed to sense that help was on the way.

  In one swift motion, Vince reached out his arm just as Joe inched toward his hand. In a flash, Vince whisked Joe down from the tree. Once again, my beloved cat was in my arms. I ran into the house and wrapped the shocked cat in blankets. Finally, I could cry.

  I cried because Joe was safe. I cried because someone had helped me when I really needed it. I cried because I finally understood that there is an end to grief. My divorce may have crushed me, but not permanently. Through it all, I had kept my kids happy, I had excelled at my job, I had made friends, and I had learned that love can and will endure, as proven by an orange Tabby.

  Joe and I still dance, and he holds a very special place in my heart. Without him, I wouldn’t have seen my friend, Vince, in a new light. Joe helped me find an excellent husband, one who possesses all the positive qualities that Joe has, plus countless more.

  ~Lori A. Sciame

  A Miraculous Connection

  Fun fact: A cat and her three kittens became known as symbols of hope after they were found in a carton of napkins in the ruins of the World Trade Center in 2001.

  Four days before the World Trade Center fell, my thirteen-year-old tortoiseshell Tabby, Rascal, underwent a bilateral thyroidectomy. Afterwards, with her neck shaved, exposed, and scarred, my usually feisty old gal was subdued, still reeling from surgery and the pain of recovery. I empathized with Rascal because my world, too, had seismically shifted in recent weeks. In addition to my cat’s medical needs, my dad was battling pancreatic cancer, I was in constant pain from a lower-back injury, and the unthinkable had just happened: the 9/11 attacks with their subsequent loss of thousands of lives and the spiraling devastation of countless families, friends, and heartsick citizens.

  A little before noon on Friday, September 14, 2001, I sat down on the sofa with my Episcopal hymnal and prayer book in hand, ready to honor lives lost and changed forever. The televised National Day of Prayer and Remembrance service provided a much-needed collective opportunity for folks to mourn all the victims. The second I settled on the sofa, Rascal claimed a spot beside me. We’d spent a lot of time together on that couch in recent days as I watched endless news feeds and Rascal quietly recuperated. My heart was heavy as pre-service TV footage rolled. My eyes burned with tears. Hearing me sniffle, Rascal snuggled close, nudging and consoling me.

  “I’m still here, and I’m here for you,” she seemed to say.

  As government officials streamed solemnly into Washington National Cathedral, the broadcasters became quiet. Welcoming the temporary reprieve from talk and tears, Rascal hunkered down for a nap. And then the service began. Inspiring music filled the church.

  When the opening hymn began, I sang with abandon, relieved, at last, to be able to participate in some small way. The second I started singing, Rascal’s head popped up and she swiveled around to gaze at m
e. Strangely fascinated by the sound, her green eyes glowed intently. As my emotion-charged voice continued, Rascal stood up, marched onto my lap, positioned her face inches from mine — and started to sing!

  Although cat-erwauling might be a more apt description, at that moment there was no doubt in my mind that my spunky cat was singing along with the rest of us. Rascal’s commiserating meows continued unabated, her head inching steadily closer to my mouth as if she were actually trying to locate the source of those baffling sounds. At once touched and tickled by my kitty’s delightfully odd behavior, my singing became riddled with giggles. As each subsequent verse began, I expected Rascal to lose interest and back off, but her curiosity never waned. Even after the final note of that hymn trailed away, she hovered expectantly, eagerly awaiting one more verse.

  As lessons were read and homilies spoken, Rascal curled up beside me and fell asleep. Even the voice of an eloquent soloist failed to wake her. But as soon as another congregational hymn began — and I broke into my amateur squawking — Rascal scrambled into my lap, craning her head across my hymnal, sniffing my warm breath as it fanned her face and looking deep into my mouth, searching for the source of that strange racket.

  As she persistently head-butted my hymnal, chiming in with her kindred cries, Rascal and I sang a heartfelt duet. At one point, when my father briefly visited, we both got up to greet him in the kitchen. Returning to the living room after Dad left, I realized Rascal was nowhere in sight. And then another hymn began….

  “This will be the test,” I laughed aloud. “Was it a fluke, or will Rascal sing with me again?”

  To my amazement, it wasn’t a fluke. Hearing me belt out the next hymn, my elderly companion whipped around a corner from the kitchen and climbed into my lap again.

  Laughing, choking back tears, I savored the miraculous connection of song that on the saddest day imaginable filled a feline with incredible compassion and support for her grieving mistress. Rascal meowed continuously that day, verse after verse, her ancient eyes riveted to mine, her silky head nudging my hymnal until, finally, I balanced the book in one hand and gently stroked her fur with the other, soothing and being soothed in return.

  Prior to that poignant service, Rascal had never before joined me in song, and from that day until her death in January 2005, it never happened again. On some inexplicably awesome level, my furry friend sensed the gut-wrenching grief of that long-ago time. On September 14, 2001, an elderly cat wearing the battle scars of her own valiant fight against disease joined our nation in a profound outpouring of sorrow and support. Alone in my home, I sang with millions of people worldwide… and one compassionate Tabby.

  ~Wendy Hobday Haugh

  A Different Life

  Fun fact: There are more than forty varieties of Tabbies, making them the most common breed of cat.

  After thirty-six years of marriage, I was alone, living in a nice rental townhouse near my work. My three wonderful kids, now grown, had families of their own. Thankfully, I had a job that took up my days, but the nights were long and lonely. My life fell into a dreary routine: wake, work, home, eat, sleep, repeat.

  A few months after my move, a co-worker found a stray cat living under her porch. She could not take him in because she already had three cats. I was reluctant, even though I was allowed to have a cat in my unit. I had always been one to nurture and care for helpless critters. I had even raised two orphaned robins to adulthood. But right then, to agree to adopt a homeless cat, sight unseen, seemed a little crazy. But perhaps I was feeling a little crazy that day because I suddenly blurted out, “Okay! I’ll take him!”

  At first, he huddled in a tight ball inside the carrier and refused to come out. I could see that he was a tan-and-black Tabby, fairly nondescript. Well, that was exactly how I felt. I went about some quiet chores, and eventually he ventured out to hide under a chair and watch me suspiciously with his big yellow eyes as I moved about. I spoke to him in a soft, soothing voice, and slowly he loosened up. Crouching low to the floor, he began to work his way around the perimeter of the first floor, slowly investigating every corner and piece of furniture. At any little noise or unexpected movement, he would jump and tense, then continue on his timorous exploration.

  As I watched him, I could see that he had an impression in the fur around his neck where a collar had been. I looked at my hand where there was still an indentation left by my absent wedding rings. We had similar losses. Neither of us belonged to anyone.

  The Tabby looked directly at me now. I looked back, with my eyes half-closed so as not to seem threatening, and wondered: What happened to you? What have you gone through out on your own? I thought it must have been very frightening for him, suddenly out fending for himself, because that’s how I felt. The world was so big, and I felt so small. He was pretty thin, too, so he obviously had not been doing very well. I could also relate to that. I had lost twenty pounds.

  Watching him creep along the baseboards, the boundaries of his new world, I saw exactly how I had been living for months, creeping around the boundaries of my own newly single life, peeking around corners, afraid to venture too far out into the open, keeping to the routine. I no longer knew where or how I fit into the world, just like that poor, homeless cat.

  Later on, I lay stiffly in my bed, straining to hear any sound from my feline guest. Where was he? What was he doing? Did he use the litter box? I did not even know if he had come upstairs yet. Cats are so quiet! Time dragged on. I got up once and looked for him to no avail, so I went back to bed, straining to hear any sound. At some point, though, tense as I was, I must have dozed off because I was suddenly wakened by a solid thump at my feet. I lifted my head ever so slightly and peered toward the foot of the bed. The cat stood facing me, statue still. Neither of us even twitched. My sleepy brain wondered: Was he going to attack me? Had he ever been vaccinated? I dared not move. The small nightlight in the room gave off a soft glow that reflected eerily from his big, round eyes. Was he glaring, staring, or just looking? My imagination had to choose which before I could decide what to do next, like defensively burying myself under the covers. I chose “looking,” and slowly put my head back on the pillow, took a deep breath and resolved to be calm.

  Then an extraordinary thing happened! The cat uttered an audible sigh, sucking in a deep breath that I could hear as he expelled it in a soft whoosh. I felt movement, then warm pressure on my feet as he curled up against me with his head resting on my ankle. Relaxed. Another sigh, and he closed his eyes. He had made the choice to trust me and began to purr, that gentle, contented rumbling that seems to say “all is well.” My heart melted. We chose each other that night and spent the next day bonding before I had to go back to work on Monday. I named him Bailey. I no longer had to come home to an empty house because he was there, always sitting on the back of the chair by the window, looking for me or curled up beside me on the sofa, warm and comforting.

  My three-year-old granddaughter was sleeping over one night and asked me to tell her the story of how Bailey came to live with me. I told her a brief version, and since I was scrapbooking at the time, I thought it would be fun to gather pictures of him and create a storybook for her. I bought a spiral notebook to begin writing what I imagined his life had been like while he was lost. I took the notebook to work every day and wrote longhand on my lunch breaks and more during the evenings. The words and situations poured out from my heart onto the pages, and I realized that I wasn’t just writing a fiction story of a lost cat; I was writing my own story. It became a way to release my feelings in a safe way through creative writing. My anger and anxiety flowed onto the pages as I eagerly wrote, to see what would happen to my reluctant hero. I had to purchase a laptop in order to write more and faster!

  I told my friends about my new “hobby,” and they urged me to self-publish. The result was an actual book I could hold in my hands, with a cover and 247 pages filled with my words! Those who read it loved it, but I wondered how that could be. Me? An author? I couldn�
�t write a book! I had not set out to write a book, after all. But I’ve always believed that God works in mysterious ways, opens windows when doors seem closed, and works all things for good. In my case, God opened a window and let in a cat I named Bailey… and a new and different life began.

  ~Beth DiCola

  All My Children Wear Fur Coats

  Fun fact: All kittens are born with blue eyes, which will change by the time they’re eight weeks old. Kittens’ eyes remain closed until they’re ten to fourteen days old.

  My fiancé knew all about my love of cats up front and I began my “kitten campaign” in earnest less than a week after the wedding. Whenever I broached the subject, Mark shot me “the look,” indicating further cat conversation was futile.

  One glorious fall day, in our sixth month of marriage, everything changed. Mark walked into the living room and announced, “Okay, we can get a cat.” Before I could respond, he moved close, pointed his coffee cup at me, narrowed his eyes and pronounced, “But you have to clean the litter box.”

  I jumped into his arms. I would have agreed to the daily cleaning of the elephant cage at the zoo if it meant bringing a kitten into our home.

  Before he changed his mind or added any more stipulations, I grabbed his hand and dragged him out the door to begin our kitten quest.

  The day we met our kitten is still one of my best memories. The shelter worker opened the cage and handed me a sweet ball of vibrating fur. I called Mark over to meet the enchanting Tabby-Siamese mix. As he approached, I rehearsed my case for bringing her home, but she took matters into her own paws. Settling into his hands, she leaned forward, put a tiny paw on his arm, blinked deep blue eyes and licked his face. The deal was sealed. He fell in love.

  That sassy kitten filled our house with love, laughter and copious amounts of fur. She charmed us, entertained us, slept with us, and demanded our full attention and devotion.