by Amy Newmark
~Charles Bukowski
About twelve years ago, my daughter’s father moved over a thousand miles away without saying goodbye to her. When we discovered he had left, Danielle was inconsolable, hurt, and angry. No amount of hugs or explanations could heal her broken heart, and I was at a loss in knowing how to help her. Since she had a nurturing personality and a deep love for animals, I decided to cheer her up with something to refocus her attention — a kitten.
At the rescue facility we spotted a fist-sized, fuzzy, black kitten meowing at the top of his lungs. His green eyes were bright, and his pert, little ears — much too big for his small head — stood at attention. He was amidst his brothers and sisters, all variations of gray and white. He was the only black kitten in the litter, and he was the tiniest.
When Dani held him in her arms, it was love at first sight. The kitten curled belly-up into her arms and purred so loudly that he sounded like a baby freight train. “Oh, Mommy, I love him. Can we keep him?”
“What are you going to name him?” I asked.
“Spencer,” she said.
Spencer proved to be acutely aware that his presence was healing for Dani. He was high-maintenance in his need for cuddles and petting. If he wasn’t getting enough attention, he would meow. It wasn’t just a little mewling — it was a loud, piercing, mournful meow.
Keeping Spencer out of trouble, or rescuing him from trouble, was a twenty-four-hour job! I still laugh when I recall the time he got his head stuck in a hamster ball. The hamster got away safely, but poor Spencer looked like an astronaut roaming the moon.
My daughter took her role as kitty mommy seriously. She made sure he was fed, watered, and had clean litter. As the years passed, Dani thrived. Her hurt and anger turned into a positive energy that motivated her to achieve high grades throughout high school, so much so that she eventually got a full scholarship to college.
The drawback to going to college was that Spencer could not go with her. Instead, he stayed behind with my new husband and me. When Dani left, Spencer’s neediness diminished, and he became a lazy cat who only occasionally wanted affection. When Dani would return home for long weekends, Spencer’s mournful meows and need for love would reappear as if he found his renewed purpose.
Dani eventually moved off campus and took Spencer with her. Spencer easily fell into her routine without requiring so much attention. He would curl at her feet when she was studying, and she slept with the sweet sound of his purrs in her ear, always her vigilant and faithful cat.
Then Dani met her future fiancé, and he was allergic to cats. He would sneeze, wheeze, and become deathly ill whenever he was around Spencer. Since my husband and I were moving into an RV with a Bull Mastiff, we couldn’t take Spencer. Dani’s fiancé offered to get weekly allergy shots, but that was not a viable solution for a lifetime commitment. Dani began the painful task of seeking a new home for her precious Spencer, but after months of looking she had not found the right place for him.
Dani worked with fish and wildlife, so she was surrounded by fellow animal lovers. When a co-worker announced that his wife of ten years left him and his three children, Dani’s heart went out to his daughters and son. She remembered her emotions when her dad left and how it devastated her. She also recalled how much Spencer helped her heal from the loss of her dad.
Dani asked her co-worker, “How are the kids taking it?”
“Bad. Very bad. I don’t know how to stop them from hurting,” he confided.
“Have you thought about adopting a cat? One who has experience in helping kids get over the loss of a parent?”
When my daughter shared her story, the co-worker asked to bring the kids over to meet Spencer. The minute they walked into Dani’s home, Spencer started his mournful, pitiful, loud meow. He jumped into the arms of the smallest child, a four-year-old, who tried to comfort Spencer by saying, “It’s okay, kitty. It’s okay.” Spencer rolled belly-up and started purring like a baby freight train.
“Can we keep him, Daddy? Can we take him home?”
It was love at first sight. Spencer was doing what he did best — healing a broken heart.
~Dawn Smith Gondeck
In from the Cold
Cats choose us; we don’t own them.
~Kristin Cast
He showed up one night as my husband RJ and I were having dinner on the deck. The aroma of steak must have attracted his attention, and he tentatively climbed up the stairs to watch us. When my husband threw the leftover T-bone from our dinner toward him, the black-and-white cat attacked it like a dog.
Over the next couple of weeks, we’d hear him crying before he slowly crept up the stairs, stopping to watch from the top step. His body language said, “Don’t come near me.” But when food was thrown his way, he continued to devour it with obvious hunger. Anyone who knew RJ’s distaste for cats would have been shocked, but he seemed to admire the way this skinny creature attacked the scraps, stating, “That cat eats like a dog.”
As summer turned into fall, the cat became friendlier, even coming over to rub against our legs. The high point happened when he started sitting in my lap for short periods. RJ said he could stay, but he would not have a cat in the house. We started calling him Tommy, and he took his meals by the sliding doors of the deck. As the nights grew colder, we sat outside less, and he would place his nose against the door and call for his meal.
Tommy became a staple in my life. If I didn’t see him for several days, I became concerned. The days grew shorter and colder. Then winter arrived with snow and frigid temperatures.
After a particularly heavy snow, I left RJ working on files he’d brought home from his office and mushed my way into town for groceries. Thank goodness we had a 4-wheel drive since the store was miles away. When I returned, RJ was still working, but he’d pulled another chair over beside him. The wooden chair now held Tommy, curled up in a ball and purring when RJ reached over to pet him.
“What gives?” I asked.
“Well, it is so cold outside, and he looked pitiful sitting at the door watching me. I decided he could come in and get warm.”
When bedtime rolled around, RJ checked the outside thermometer and decided the cat couldn’t go back out into the below-zero cold. “He can stay in the house, but he will not be allowed on the bed.”
“Where is he going to sleep?” I had had cats previously, and I knew that what RJ said and what the cat decided would likely be different.
“I’ll fix him a bed.” RJ got the clothesbasket from the laundry room and pulled towels from the linen closet. He placed the new bed beside ours and put the cat inside. He reached down and scratched Tommy’s head until they both fell asleep.
Of course, I woke up in the middle of the night, and the cat was on the bed snuggled between us. Discovering the new sleeping arrangements when he awakened the next morning, RJ shrugged his shoulders and declared, “If he’s going to be a house cat, we need to get him to the vet for shots.”
Over the next several years, Tommy came and went as he chose, but he always showed up at dinnertime. RJ had a small dish of vanilla ice cream each night, and his new buddy always got a taste, too. On winter nights he would curl up on one of our laps while we watched television.
Then my husband had a stroke and passed away. The house bustled with out-of-town family and friends, but the cat was nowhere in sight. Once everyone had departed, Tommy showed up.
On the first night in a now-quiet house, Tommy wandered through the house calling for my husband at bedtime. I lay in bed listening to the pathetic cries. He gave up after about an hour, jumped on the bed and came over to me. My heart broke when he buried his head in my neck and made a strange sound for several minutes. Yes, cats can grieve and cry.
He shared my grief, and we became closer, snuggling each night to comfort each other. There was no question when I moved to another city that he would, too. The outside cat became a housecat. He still loved the ice cream RJ used to share with him, and he continued to sleep
with me every night. But old habits die hard, and when others came into the house, he disappeared.
My kids encouraged me to start dating, so I eventually worked up the courage to take the first step. One of the gentlemen who a friend introduced me to asked me out. When he walked me to the door after an enjoyable time, I invited him in for coffee. While I made our coffee, he sat in the living room, and a visitor came down the stairs.
Tommy walked over and sniffed this stranger who dared invade his space, and I waited for him to bolt. Instead, the cat climbed into my date’s lap and made himself comfortable, purring over the petting he received.
The end result of cat approval was that we married a couple of years later. Tommy slept with us until his passing, which we both grieved.
A lot of years have passed and a new cat has entered our lives. But memories of Tommy are still in my heart. I thank that cat every day for sharing the love of my first husband, and for his immediate approval of my new one.
~L.M. Fillingim
My Shadow
A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him.
~William Lyon Phelps
I guess I was lonely. I was going to school and working full-time to pay for it. I had my own studio apartment, which meant no roommate drama, but I started to yearn for companionship.
On my birthday, I decided to get a puppy since I missed my childhood dog so much. I certainly couldn’t afford a purebred like the one I had when I was little, so I went to the local Humane Society. When I arrived that Saturday afternoon, it was a cacophony of sound with all shapes and manners of dogs demanding attention.
I spent thirty minutes walking among the dogs and finally talked myself out of one. I decided they were too big for a studio, and too young for me to take on housebreaking, considering my busy schedule.
Dejected, I was heading outside when I saw a small glass door I had not noticed before. There was a sign saying there more pets inside. I figured I could use a few more puppy kisses for the road and opened the door.
I ended up in the cattery. Walking up and down the rows, I saw dozens of sleeping and disinterested cats. They certainly weren’t moved by my presence; most barely flicked their tails in acknowledgment. But there was one who was different. Each time I passed his cage, he slapped a black-and-white speckled paw at me.
I wasn’t really there for a cat, but figured he should at least be rewarded with some affection for his persistence. I stopped on my next pass and rubbed behind his ears. His luminous, green eyes roved over my face. A volunteer saw an opportunity, opened the cage, and handed him to me. The black-and-white fur ball immediately broke into a purr louder than my blender. He proceeded to open his mouth and rub his teeth and gums all over my chin. It was a little wetter and smellier of a greeting than I expected, but it did the trick.
My new friend and I went home. He scoured my apartment with head bobs and slinky moves under the kitchen table. He peered into the toilet, watching the water swirl and dabbled his paws under the stream of water from the sink. He burrowed through the pillows on my bed and finally ended up napping on top of my desk while I worked on my computer, his head resting on the mouse. He followed me every time I moved, so I named him Shadow.
That first night after my lights went out, he promptly jumped on the bed, kneaded my shoulder a few times, and buried his nose in my hair as he curled up on me. He slept there every night for two years until I met my future husband and got married. My husband banished him from the bedroom. Seven years later, Shadow magically reappeared on my shoulder the first night after my divorce. He kneaded and snuggled in as I cried myself to sleep.
Shadow embedded himself in my life. When I was sick with a cold, he would give my shoulder a break. He would curl up between my legs, facing me, and open his eyes periodically to gaze on my face. When I took a government job and spent evenings with paperwork spread across the apartment floor, he would settle in on the least-needed piece of paper and watch with rapt attention. I would reward him periodically by running a pencil under his sheet of paper. The fluff on the back of his neck would puff up, and his eyes would dilate in excitement as he pounced repeatedly on the pencil.
He made friends for both of us when I was too shy to do so. I had gotten the notion in my head he might like to go outside. However, I didn’t want him to run off or get hurt, so I opted to try a cat leash. He took to it like a duck to water, eventually sitting very still by the door each time so I could buckle it around his little body. He walked regally outside around the apartment complex, pausing to crouch excitedly in the green grassy areas when a bird’s shadow would pass overhead. Neighbors were drawn to this curiosity — a cat on a leash — and I ended up meeting and befriending everyone in the complex because of Shadow.
When I adopted my daughter and placed her on the play mat among the toys, he would sit at the edge of the mat and watch her attentively. Occasionally, a ball would roll too close to him, and he would bat it back in play for her. At night, he would circle on the rug by her crib until she fell asleep.
Shadow took all the bumps of my life in stride. He rode quite calmly in the back window of my Chevrolet for the fourteen-hour move from Texas to Alabama. His head would bob at rest stops, taking in the sights. He rode just as quietly on the move back from Alabama to Texas ten years later when I left in defeat.
Like the stars, he was the one constant in my orbit for seventeen years. He was there through a marriage, a divorce, the adoption of my daughter, ten moves, my graduation from college, a layoff, three dogs, and the deaths of my grandfather and my sister. He saw many of the great moments, but he was the only one who saw all my worst moments — my tears, anger, embarrassment, loneliness, shame, sickness, and fear. He was there every day, rubbing his open mouth on my chin and purring like an engine.
I remember opening the blinds at the back door on his last day. A warm spot of sun appeared on the floor, and he pulled himself to it like so many times before. He curled up on his back briefly, those luminous green eyes taking me in for one last time. It’s a little bittersweet that my favorite Shadow faded out in the sun, and there’s been no one like him in my little orbit since — not canine, human, or feline.
~Angela M. Meek
We Saved Each Other
Since each of us is blessed with only one life, why not live it with a cat?
~Robert Stearns
I was at the stove covering up the food I had just cooked to keep it warm when Chuck walked through the door. He was holding a pet carrier with the newest member of our family inside — Candy, a little tabby cat we found at the local animal shelter just days earlier.
Candy had been discovered in an abandoned building in upper Manhattan and was only about four months old. We saved her from a life of scavenging for food and warding off the other cats that prowled the streets of Harlem.
Bringing Candy home was one of the few joyful moments Chuck and I experienced that year. His mother had suffered a slow, painful death from brain cancer, followed only seven months later by his father’s fatal heart attack. Chuck was only thirty-six, so young to lose both his parents. On some days, the overwhelming, crushing feelings of grief and loss left him physically and emotionally incapacitated.
Our relationship suffered considerably during that year. Most people our age still had healthy, functioning parents, and they didn’t understand what we were going through. I had no experience with this either, and no idea how to help Chuck through his grief.
Chuck was so emotionally isolated as he tried to process his grief. He kept pushing me away. Oftentimes, he would zone out in front of the TV and say nary a word for hours. It was like he was in a far-off place that I just couldn’t reach, like we weren’t even living in the same reality. Sitting next to someone who doesn’t even know you’re there is a disturbing experience.
He also started having bursts of rage. I never knew when it would happen, and living with such volatility was almost impossible. I would always forgive Chuck
after his waves of anger had subsided, and I believed that his behavior was temporary — that it was the grief talking, not him. I urged him to go to therapy, but despite my pleading, Chuck wouldn’t make an appointment. Many times, I felt like giving up, but a part of me knew deep down that I had to hold on for Chuck and see him through the lowest point of his life.
It was under these circumstances that we agreed to adopt a cat from a local animal shelter. Looking back, I’m not sure why we thought it would be a good idea to get a pet. Our relationship was hanging on by a thread, and neither of us was in a great mental space to take care of an animal.
Nevertheless, we visited a few local shelters before we stumbled upon that brown-and-orange tabby cat. We chuckled as she slowly stretched her body before she came out to greet us, as if socializing with humans was a task one had to prepare for. She nuzzled against Chuck’s leg in the visiting room, walking back and forth between the two of us. We decided to take her home and change her name from Juniper to Candy, for her sweetness and the sheer delight she brought to us.
Candy was very anxious in her new home. She hid under tables and would get into our bed and bury herself under the covers for hours at a time. But slowly she began to get comfortable. Chuck easily became the “favored” owner. Even though I worked from home and was with her all day, she would run toward the door in the evening as soon as she heard his footsteps on the stairs. Instead of entering the apartment with his usual sad frown, Chuck’s face would light up when he saw Candy, and he would scoop her into his arms for a nuzzle.
Sometimes, I got annoyed that I was the one who took care of Candy all day but Chuck was the one who got all the attention as soon as he walked through the door, as if I didn’t exist! But it was hard to resist the happy sight of Chuck and Candy together. He loved taking care of her and took responsibility for clipping her nails, giving her baths, and changing her litter. His favorite thing to do after work was lie on the couch and let Candy crawl all over him until she settled on his belly while he scratched behind her ears.