Treasury of Joy & Inspiration (18 page)

A Good Rest

When my
husband was away at basic training, my four-year-old daughter and I stayed with my sister. Since my daughter already called me Mommy, she started calling her aunt Mom—the way her six-year-old cousin did. One day, someone called. I picked up the extension and overheard the person ask my daughter if her daddy was home.

She said, “No, he's in the Army.”

“Is your mom home?” he asked.

“Yes, but she's asleep with Uncle Danny.”
Tonya Aleisawi

The Ugliest Cat in the World

BY PENNY PORTER

March 1993

T
he first
time I ever saw Smoky, she was on fire. My three children and I had arrived at the dump outside our Arizona desert town to throw out the weekly trash. As we approached the pit, which was smoldering, we heard the most mournful cries of a cat entombed in the smoking rubble.

Suddenly a large cardboard box, which had been wired shut, burst into flames and exploded. With a long, piercing meow, the animal imprisoned within shot into the air like a flaming rocket and dropped into the ash-filled crater.

“Mommy, do something!” three-year-old Jaymee cried as she and Becky, six, leaned over the smoking hole.

“It can't possibly be alive,” Scott, 16, said. But the ashes moved, and a tiny kitten, charred almost beyond recognition, miraculously struggled to the surface and crawled toward us in agony. “I'll get her!” Scott yelled. As he wrapped the kitten in my bandanna, I wondered why it didn't cry from the added pain. Later we learned we had heard its last meow only moments before.

Back at our ranch, we were doctoring the kitten when my husband, Bill, came in, weary from a long day of fence-mending. When he saw our patient, that familiar “Oh no, not again!” look crossed his face. This wasn't the first time we had greeted him with an injured animal. Though Bill always grumbled, he couldn't bear to see any living creature suffer. So he helped by building perches, pens and splints for the skunks, rabbits and birds we brought home. This was different, however. This was a cat. And Bill, very definitely, did not like cats.

What's more, this was no ordinary cat. Where fur had been, blisters and a sticky black gum remained. Her ears were gone. Her tail was cooked to the bone. Gone were the claws that would have snatched some unsuspecting mouse. Gone were the little paw pads that would have left telltale tracks on our car. Nothing that resembled a cat was left—except for two huge cobalt-blue eyes begging for help. What could we do?

Suddenly I remembered our aloe vera plant, and its supposed healing power on burns. So we peeled the leaves, swathed the kitten in slimy aloe strips and gauze bandages, and placed her in Jaymee's Easter basket. All we could see was her tiny face, like a butterfly waiting to emerge from a cocoon.

Her tongue was severely burned, and the inside of her mouth was so blistered that she couldn't lap, so we fed her fluids with an eyedropper. After a while, she began eating by herself. We named her Smoky.

Three weeks later, we coated Smoky with a salve that turned her body a curious shade of green. Her tail dropped off. Not a hair remained. And the children and I adored her.

Bill didn't. And Smoky despised him. The reason: Bill was a pipe smoker armed with matches and butane lighters. When he lit up, Smoky panicked, knocking over cups and lamps before fleeing into the open air duct in the spare bedroom.

In time, Smoky became more tolerant. She'd lie on the sofa and glare at Bill as he puffed away. One day he looked at me and chuckled, “Damn cat makes me feel guilty.”

As Smoky's health improved, we marveled at her patience with the girls, who dressed her in doll clothes and bonnets so the “no ears” wouldn't show. Then they held her up to the mirror so she could see “how pretty” she was.

By the end of her first year, Smoky resembled a well-used welding glove. Scott was famous among his friends for owning the ugliest pet in the county—probably, the world.

Smoky longed to play outside where the sounds of birds, chickens and chipmunks tempted her. When it was time to feed our outdoor pets, including our Mexican wolf, the occasional skunks and assorted lizards, she sat inside, spellbound, with her nose pressed against the window. It was the barn cats, however, that caused her tiny body to tremble with eagerness. But since she had no claws for protection, we couldn't let her go outside unwatched.

Occasionally we took Smoky on the porch when other animals weren't around. If she was lucky an unsuspecting beetle or June bug would make the mistake of strolling across the concrete. Smoky would stalk, bat and toss the bug until it flipped onto its back, where, one hopes, it died of fright before she ate it.

Slowly, oddly, Bill became the one she cared for the most. And before long, I noticed a change in him. He rarely smoked in the house now, and one winter night, to my astonishment, I found him sitting in his chair with the leathery little cat curled up on his lap. Before I could comment, he mumbled a curt “She's probably cold—no fur you know.” But Smoky, I reminded myself, liked being cold. Didn't she sleep in front of air ducts and on the cold brick floor? Perhaps Bill was starting to like this strange-looking animal just a bit.

Not everyone shared our feelings for Smoky, especially those who had never seen her. Rumors reached a group of self-appointed animal protectors, and one day one of them arrived at our door.

“I've had numerous calls and letters,” the woman said. “All these dear souls are concerned about a poor little burned-up cat you have in your house. They say,” her voice dropped an octave, “she's suffering.” Perhaps it should be put out of its misery?

I was furious. Bill was even more so. “Burned she was,” he said, “but suffering? Look for yourself.”

“Here kitty,” I called. No Smoky. “She's probably hiding,” I said, but our guest didn't answer. When I turned and looked at her, the woman's skin was gray, her mouth hung open and two fingers pointed.

Magnified tenfold in all her naked splendor, Smoky glowered at the visitor from her hiding place behind our 150-gallon aquarium. The effect was awesome. Instead of the “poor little burned-up suffering creature” the woman had expected to see, a veritable tyrannosaurus Smoky leered at her through the green aquatic maze. Her open jaws exposed saberlike fangs that glinted menacingly in the neon light. Moments later the woman was gone—smiling now, a little embarrassed and greatly relieved.

During Smoky's second year, a miraculous thing happened. She began growing fur. Tiny white hairs, softer and finer than the down on a chick, gradually grew over three inches long, transforming our ugly little cat into a wispy puff of smoke.

Bill continued to enjoy her company, though the two made an incongruous pair—the big weather-worn rancher driving around with an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth, accompanied by the tiny white ball of fluff. When he got out of the truck to check the cattle, he left the air conditioner on for her comfort. Or he picked her up and held her against his denim jacket.

Smoky was three years old on the day she went with Bill to look for a missing calf. Searching for hours, he would leave the truck door open when he got out to look. The pastures were parched and crisp with dried grasses and tumbleweed. A storm loomed on the horizon, and still no calf. Discouraged, without thinking, Bill reached into his pocket for his lighter and spun the wheel. A spark shot to the ground and, in seconds, the weeds were on fire.

Frantic, Bill didn't think about the cat. Only after the fire was under control and the calf found did he return home and remember. “Smoky!” he cried. “She must have jumped out of the truck! Did she come home?”

No. And we knew she'd never find her way home from two miles away. To make matters worse, it had started to rain—so hard we couldn't go out to look for her.

Bill was distraught, blaming himself. We spent the next day searching, knowing she'd be helpless against predators. It was no use.

Two weeks
later Smoky still wasn't home. We assumed she was dead by now, for the rainy season had begun, and the hawks, wolves and coyotes had families to feed.

Then came the biggest rainstorm our region had had in 50 years. By morning, flood waters stretched for miles, marooning wildlife and cattle on scattered islands of higher ground. Frightened rabbits, raccoons, squirrels and desert rats waited for the water to subside, while Bill and Scott waded knee-deep, carrying bawling calves back to their mamas and safety.

The girls and I were watching intently when suddenly Jaymee shouted, “Daddy! There's a poor little rabbit over there. Can you get it?”

Bill waded to the spot where the animal lay, but when he reached out to help the tiny creature, it seemed to shrink back in fear. “I don't believe it,” Bill cried. “It's Smoky!” His voice broke. “Little Smoky!”

My eyes ached with tears when that pathetic little cat crawled into the outstretched hands of the man she had grown to love. He pressed her shivering body to his chest, talked to her softly and gently wiped the mud from her face. All the while her blue eyes fastened on his with unspoken understanding. He was forgiven.

Smoky came home again. The patience she showed us as we shampooed her astounded us. We fed her scrambled eggs and ice cream, and to our joy she seemed to get well.

But Smoky had never really been strong. One morning when she was barely four years old, we found her limp in Bill's chair. Her heart had simply stopped.

As I wrapped her body in one of Bill's red neckerchiefs and placed her in a child's shoe box, I thought of the many things Smoky had taught us about trust, affection and struggling against the odds when everything says you can't win. She reminded us that it's not what's outside that counts—it's what's inside, deep in our hearts.

That's why Smoky will always be in my heart. And why, to me, she'll always be the most beautiful cat in the world.

Glass Half Full

I have
long been teased about my large nose, and I sought some reassurance from a friend.

“Is it really that big?” I asked.

“No, your nose isn't big,” he replied. “It's just that your face is too far back.”
Tony Murray

My Fourteenth Summer

By W.
 
W. Meade

July 1998

O
ne evening
I sat in Miami's Pro Player Stadium watching a baseball game between the Florida Marlins and the New York Mets. During the seventh-inning stretch. I noticed a teenage boy and his father one row in front of me. The father was a Mets fan, by the looks of his cap; his son's bore the Marlins' logo.

The father began ribbing his son about the Marlins, who were losing. The son's responses grew increasingly sharp. Finally, with the Marlins hopelessly behind, the boy turned to his father in a full-bore adolescent snarl. “I hate you!” he said. “You know that!” He spat the words as though they tasted as bad in his mouth as they sounded. Then he got up and took the steps two at a time toward the grandstand.

His father shook his head

In a moment he stood and squeezed out of his row of seats, looking both angry and bereft. Our eyes met. “Kids!” he said, as though that explained everything.

I sympathized—after all, I was a father now. But I knew how father
and
son felt. There was a time when I, too, had turned on the man who loved me most.

My father
was a country doctor who raised Hereford cattle on our farm in southern Indiana. A white four-board fence around the property had to be scraped and painted every three years. That was to be my job the summer after my freshman year in high school. If that wasn't bad enough news, one June day my dad decided I should extend the fence.

We were sitting at the edge of the south pasture, my father thoughtfully whittling a piece of wood, as he often did. He took off his Stetson and wiped his forehead. Then he pointed to a stand of hemlocks 300 yards away. “From here to there—that's where we want our fence,” he said. “Figure about 110 holes, three feet deep. Keep the digger's blades sharp and you can probably dig eight or ten a day.”

In a tight voice I said I didn't see how I could finish that with all the other stuff I had to do. Besides, I'd planned a little softball and fishing. “Why don't we borrow a power auger?” I suggested.

“Power augers don't learn anything from work. And we want our fence to teach us a thing or two,” he replied, slapping me on the back.

I flinched to show my resentment. What made me especially mad was the way he said “our” fence. The project was his, I told him. I was just the labor. Dad shook his head with an exasperated expression, then went back to his piece of wood.

I admired a lot about my dad, and I tried to remember those things when I felt mad at him. Once, when I'd been along on one of his house calls, I watched him tell a sick farm woman she was going to be all right before he left or he wasn't leaving. He held her hand and told her stories. He got her to laugh and then he got her out of bed. She said “Why, Doc, I do feel better.”

I asked him later how he knew she would get better. “I didn't,” he said. “But if you don't push too hard and you keep their morale up, most patients will get things fixed up themselves.” I wanted to ask why he didn't treat his own family that way, but I thought better of it.

If I
wanted to be by myself, I would retreat to a river birch by the stream that fed our pond. It forked at ground level, and I'd wedge my back up against one trunk and my feet against the other. Then I would look at the sky or read or pretend.

That summer I hadn't had much time for my tree. One evening as my father and I walked past it, he said, “I remember you scrunchin' into that tree when you were a little kid.”

“I don't,” I said sullenly.

He looked at me sharply. “What's got into you?” he said.

Amazingly, I heard myself say, “What the hell do you care?” Then I ran off to the barn. Sitting in the tack room, I tried not to cry.

My father opened the door and sat opposite me. Finally I met his gaze.

“It's not a good idea to doctor your own family,” he said. “But I guess I need to do that for you right now.” He leaned forward. “Let's see. You feel strange in your own body, like it doesn't work the same way it always had. You think no one else is like you. And you think I'm too hard on you and don't appreciate what you do around here. You even wonder how you got into a family as dull as ours.”

I was astonished that he knew my most treacherous night thoughts.

“The thing is, your body is changing,” he continued. “And that changes your entire self. You've got a lot more male hormones in your blood. And, Son, there's not a man in this world who could handle what that does to you when you're fourteen.”

I didn't know what to say. I knew I didn't like whatever was happening to me. For months I'd felt out of touch with everything. I was irritable and restless and sad for no reason. And because I couldn't talk about it, I began to feel really isolated.

“One of the things that'll help you,” my dad said after a while, “is work. Hard work.”

As soon as he said that, I suspected it was a ploy to keep me busy doing chores. Anger came suddenly. “Fine,” I said in the rudest voice I could manage. Then I stormed out.

When my
father said work he meant
work
. I dug post holes every morning, slamming that digger into the ground until I had tough calluses on my hands.

One morning I helped my father patch the barn roof. We worked in silence. In the careful way my father worked, I could see how he felt about himself, the barn, the whole farm. I was sure he didn't know what it was like to be on the outside looking in.

Just then, he looked at me and said, “You
aren't
alone you know.”

Startled, I stared at him, squatting above me with the tar bucket in his hand. How could he possibly know what I'd been thinking?

“Think about this,” he said. “If you drew a line from your feet down the side of our barn to the earth and followed it any which way, it would touch every living thing in the world. So you're never alone. No one is.”

I started to argue, but the notion of being connected to all of life made me feel so good that I let my thoughts quiet down.

As I worked through the summer, I began to notice my shoulders getting bigger. I was able to do more work, and I even started paying some attention to doing it well. I had hated hole-digging, but it seemed to release some knot inside me, as if the anger I felt went driving into the earth. Slowly I started to feel I could get through this rotten time.

One day near the end of the summer, I got rid of a lot of junk from my younger days. Afterward I went to sit in my tree as a kind of last visit to the world of my boyhood. I had to scuttle up eight feet to get space enough for my body. As I stretched out, I could feel the trunk beneath my feet weakening. Something had gotten at it—ants, maybe, or just plain age.

I pushed harder. Finally, the trunk gave way and fell to the ground. Then I cut up my tree for firewood.

The afternoon
I finished the fence, I found my father sitting on a granite outcrop in the south pasture. “You thinking about how long this grass is going to hold out with rain?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “How long you think we got?”

“Another week. Easy.”

He turned and looked me deep in the eyes. Of course I wasn't really talking about the pasture as much as I was trying to find out if my opinion mattered to him. After a while he said, “You could be right.” He paused and added, “You did a fine job on our fence.”

“Thanks,” I said almost overwhelmed by the force of his approval.

“You know,” he said, “you're going to turn out to be one hell of a man. But just because you're getting grown up doesn't mean you have to leave behind everything you liked when you were a boy.”

I knew he was thinking about my tree. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a piece of wood the size of a deck of cards. “I made this for you,” he said.

It was a piece of the heartwood from the river birch. He had carved it so the tree appeared again, tall and strong. Beneath were the words “Our Tree.”

Leaving the
Miami stadium that day, I saw the man and the boy walking toward the parking lot. The man's arm rested comfortably on his son's shoulder. I didn't know how they'd made their peace, but it seemed worth acknowledging. As I passed, I tipped my cap—to them, and to my memories of the past.