Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul (38 page)

Toto still slept.

Dinner was ready, and Jordan and I sat at the table. Relaxing after the long work day, soon we started teasing each other about what surprises were hidden in the gleaming packages beneath the tree. Then Jordan silently nodded toward Toto in his basket, and I turned my head slowly to look at the cats.

Aloysius first, and then Daphne behind him, slowly and cautiously approached the basket. While Toto rested, Aloysius sat up on his haunches, peered into the basket and gave a long, deep sniff. Gently, he lowered himself and walked to the corner of the old cat’s basket. Then he rubbed his cheek against it, softly purring. Daphne followed, leaned into the basket and, sniffing Toto’s face, placed a gentle paw on his soft blanketed body. Then she, too, lowered herself and purred as she rubbed his basket. Jordan and I watched in amazed silence. These cats had never welcomed any other cat into our home before.

Leaving my chair, I walked over and looked at Toto. With the cats still positioned at each corner of the basket, Toto looked up at me, breathed once and then relaxed. Reaching my hand beneath his blankets, I felt his heart slowly stop beating. Tears in my eyes, I turned to Jordan to let him know that Toto was gone.

Later that night, I called Toto’s owner to let her know that he had died comfortably and quietly at our home, with two cats beside him, wishing him a fond farewell and Godspeed on his last Christmas Eve.

Janet Foley, D.V.M.

8
PETCETERA

. . . a morning kiss, a discreet touch
of his nose landing somewhere
on the middle of my face. Because
his long white whiskers tickled,
I began every day laughing.

Janet F. Faure

“Kids today have everything. When I was your age
and wanted entertainment, I chased my tail.”

Reprinted by permission of Marty Bucella.

Good Neighbors

The old house behind ours was deserted now. My neighbors, the elderly couple who had lived there for many years, had died within a year of each other. Their children and grandchildren had gathered, grieved and gone.

But looking out my kitchen window one morning, I saw we still had “neighbors.” Two white cats had made their way up the back steps of the old house to sit in the sun on the back porch. Their favorite overstuffed chair was gone. Everything was gone. Even from my kitchen window I could see they were pitifully thin.
So
, I thought,
no one is
going to claim the cats. They’ve been left to starve. They’ll never
leave that old place. They’re as shy as their owners were.

I knew they’d never even been inside a house. Even during bitter cold winters, they lived outside. Once, when the female cat had kittens, a dog had killed them. After that the mama cat had her kittens in the attic of the 100-year-old house, entering through a hole in the tin roof. Several times the kittens fell down into the small space between the walls. Once my neighbor told me, “We worked most all afternoon, but we finally got the kittens out. They would have starved to death.”

I sighed, looking at the hungry cats sitting on the back porch. A familiar battle began inside me. Part of me wanted desperately to run to the cats. Another part of me wanted to turn away and never look at the starving cats again. It was frustrating to be a forty-year-oldmother and still want to pick up stray animals. When I reached twenty-five, then thirty, then surely by thirty-five, I had assumed I would outgrow my obsession with abandoned animals. Now I knew that it was only becoming worse with the years.

Sighing again, I wiped my hands on my apron, grabbed two packages of cat food and headed for the old house. The cats darted beneath the porch as I approached. I crawled part of the way under the house, which sat on concrete blocks, and called, “Here, kitties.” I saw four slanted, bright eyes gleaming at me. I could see it would be a long time before I would be able to become friendly with
these
neighbors.

For several months, I fed the cats this way. One day the mother cat came cautiously toward me and rubbed her face against my hand for a brief moment; then fear sprang into her eyes and she darted away. But after that she met me at the fence at five each day. The other cat would scamper away and hide in the bushes, waiting for me to leave. I decided the white male was probably the female cat’s son. I always talked to them as I put out their food, calling them by the names I had given them—Mama and Brother.

One day as Mama rubbed slowly against my leg with her eyes almost shut in contentment, she purred for the first time. My hand didn’t reach out, not yet, but my heart did. After that she often rubbed against me and allowed me to stroke her—even before she touched the food. Brother, reluctantly and stiff-necked, allowed me to touch him occasionally; but he always endured my affection, never fully receiving it.

The cats grew fat. One day, I saw Mama kitty on my patio. “Mama kitty,” I whispered. She had never come into my yard before. My own cats would never permit that— and yet, here she was. “Good for you, Mama,” I said to myself. Suddenly she leaped up into the air, and I thought for a moment that she was choking. Then she seemed to be chasing an object rapidly across the patio. For perhaps the first time in her life, Mama kitty was playing. I watched her toss an acorn into the air and leap after it. My cats came lurking toward the patio door to try to hiss Mama kitty away. She only looked at them and continued playing with the acorn in the sun. Brother sat on the fence, as usual, waiting for supper.

That summer Mama kitty had kittens again—in the attic. She came to my back door to get me. The Realtor had given me the keys to the empty house in case of emergency. I went to the house with the cat and crawled somewhat reluctantly into the dark attic, ignoring the spiders, dust, heat and rattling sounds that I suspected were mice. Finally, I located the three kittens. Brother stood guard over them. I brought the kittens down and fixed a box for them in the empty front bedroom of the old house. Mama kitty wasn’t too content with my moving her kittens, but she let them stay—for a while, anyway.

A week later, human neighbors showed up! Unexpectedly, another family moved into the house. Their moving frightened Mama kitty and she returned her kittens to the only safety she knew—the dark, terribly hot attic.

I quickly went over to introduce myself and explained to the family who had moved in about Mama kitty. They gave me permission to go into their attic and rescue the kittens. But I discovered Mama kitty had moved them to another spot. The old attic was a maze of hiding places, and I couldn’t find them.

Three times I went back to look, apologizing to the new tenants each time. Three times I was unsuccessful. Back at home, I would look out my window at the tin roof of the house. I could see the heat rising off it. The outside temperature stood in the upper nineties. The kittens couldn’t possibly survive.

I couldn’t let it go; I felt it was my duty to watch over those cats. One morning as I lay in bed, I prayed, “Lord, I’m asking you to get me those kittens out of that attic. I can’t find them. I don’t see how you can get them out. But just please do it. If you don’t, they’re going to die.” Silly, maybe, but it didn’t feel silly to an animal lover like myself. I hopped from my bed and ran to the back door, half expecting to find the kittens there. They weren’t there—no sign of Mama or Brother either. Nevertheless, I expected to get the kittens.

I was worried that I was wearing out my welcome with my new neighbors, but I wanted to go over one last time to look for them. When the wife answered the door to find it was me with the same request yet again, she said, without enthusiasm, that I could go up in the attic. Once I got up there, I heard them meowing!

“I’m coming. I’m coming!” I called out, my heart pounding with joy.

The next moment I couldn’t figure out what had happened. I seemed to be falling. Plaster broke loose. I wasn’t in the dark, hot attic any more, but dangling into the kitchen. I had forgotten to stay on the rafters and had crashed through the ceiling. I climbed back up onto a rafter, only to fall through again in another place.

Thoroughly shaken, I climbed back down. In the kitchen my neighbor and I looked at the damage. I was horrified, and it was clear that I wasn’t making the best impression on this woman. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed her broom and began sweeping. More plaster fell on us and we coughed in the dust. I apologized over and over, babbling that we would have the ceiling fixed. I assured her I would be back over to talk with her husband. She nodded, silently, with her arms folded, and stared at me with seeming disbelief. I hurried home, humiliated.

That night at supper, when I told my family what had happened, they all stared at me silently, the way my new neighbor had. I was close to tears, partly because of the plight of the kittens and also because of my own stupidity.

The next day I went back to the neighbors’ to speak to them about the ceiling. I arrived during a meal. The couple’s children were eating with them. They all stared at me as they continued eating. I was introduced as “that woman who goes up in the attic all the time and fell through yesterday.” I smiled at them all.

The husband looked up at me, still chewing, and said solemnly, “Get my gun, Ma.”

For one horrible moment, my heart froze. Then he broke into a little-boy grin. “Forget it. I’m a carpenter and the ceiling needed repairing, anyway.”

I smiled back at him and added, “I came to tell you that I won’t be going in your attic any more—ever.”

“Okay,” he grinned, and I thought I heard his wife sigh.

The next afternoon, our family sat in the living room reading the Sunday paper. Only I wasn’t reading, I was praying behind my part of the paper.

“Lord, it seems more hopeless than ever now. But I have no intention of giving up on this request. Give me the kittens, please.”

As I prayed, I imagined the kittens in a dark, obscure corner of the attic. I knew almost for certain that Mama kitty had moved them again. Then I imagined a large, gentle hand lifting them up and bringing them down into light and cooler air. I saw it in my mind, over and over, as I prayed. Suddenly, I thought I could actually hear the kittens’ tiny, helpless mews.

Silly,
I told myself.
Your imagination goes wild when you
pray.

Jerry put down the sports page; the children looked up from the comics. We all listened quietly, almost without breathing. “Mew, mew, mew.” It was real!

The doorbell rang and we all ran for it. I got there first and there stood my neighbor, cobwebs in his hair, dust on his overalls, and the impish little-boy grin on his lean face. We all looked down and there, cradled in his hands, were the kittens.

“Lady, you won’t have to look any more for ’em. I found ’em for you.”

This time Mama kitty let her brood stay where I put them, in our small storeroom, just off the carport. We found excellent, cat-loving homes for the fat, playful kittens. And I found a permanent solution to the attic/kitten problem. I had Mama kitty spayed.

That was over a year ago. Brother still sits cautiously on my backyard fence, cold and often hungry. I keep trying with him, but he’s obviously still skeptical about my neighborly good will.

Not Mama kitty. Now she comes right into the kitchen to eat from my other cats’ dishes! She rubs against my leg when I let her in. On cold nights she sleeps curled up in a kitchen chair. And often she sits and watches me type. At first, my cats hissed, growled and fumed. Eventually, they just gave up and accepted Mama kitty.

Now when I look out my window at that old house, I have to smile. It’s good to see lights on in the kitchen and children’s toys in the yard. The new occupants and I have become pretty close. It’s not hard to break the ice—once you’ve broken the ceiling.

Marion Bond West

The Cat and the Cat Burglar

I lived in New York City for many years. As a professional dancer and dance instructor, it was the logical place to pursue my career. The city had its many good points— fine museums, great theater, wonderful food and terrific shopping, but it also had its downside—high prices, crowding, noise and crime. The crime bothered me the most. As a single woman, I felt particularly vulnerable. I considered getting a dog for protection; I had grown up with German shepherds and loved them. But the idea of cramming a big dog in a tiny apartment didn’t feel right. So, like every other single woman in New York, I had a few deadbolts on my door, and in the streets, I watched my back.