AMY
Not all of our pets were dear sweet creatures everyone loves, and I am sure this is the case in other pet families too. In Chillicothe, we happened upon another cat that needed a home. Actually, we happened upon two other cats, but not at the same time. We were lucky to have found Dr. Jim Peters, one of the best veterinarians I’ve ever worked with. Jim Peters is a HOSP. He is a special man and tends to every animal he treats with love and kindness. I believe Jim is a GOTR, too, and when we lost our precious cat, Winnie, he knew I needed another feline to help me overcome the loss. Vets often find themselves with abandoned or sick animals no one wants. Sometimes Jim feeds them at his offices and tries to find them homes if he can.
Months after Winnie died, I got a call from Jim. He had three orphan kittens about five weeks old that needed homes. So our son Marc and I visited his office to look them over. Right away, I noticed a dignified-looking black kitten that was the largest of the litter and had an intelligent way about her. Marc chose her for our new pet, and we named her Amy, after the girl in Jim’s office who bottle-fed her back to health. Amy was pure black and the smartest cat I had ever known. She was so sharp it made you think she would have completed Cat College if there were such a thing. Intelligent and arrogant would be my description of her. Amy, like Winnie, sat behind me on the back of my chair while I painted for most of each day. She loved me dearly but was not the kind of cat that hops up on your lap and purrs. Amy disliked all other cats in the world and just about every human except Marc and me. I believe it was because she happened to be a snob and felt all other beings were intellectually inferior.
Unfortunately, Amy had a rare disease from birth that affected her digestion, and we had to give her a special diet for the rest of her life. Jim had warned us that Amy might not live a full life, but that didn’t affect our decision. When I changed careers and left the house to work in the real world as the director of a community art center in Chillicothe, Amy went into a deep depression and began to lick off her fur. Actually, it was more like pulling it off with her teeth. This happened during the winter, and she obsessively pulled out about a third of her coat. Amy looked pitiful and would walk around with her backside picked clean. Our vet did various tests and performed a full workup on her. Finally, Dr. Peters felt Amy probably had separation anxiety after finding nothing physically wrong. Veterinarians sometimes give animals anxiety medication to handle such problems. Still, I couldn’t stand the thought of this smart cat walking around like a Zombie. Eventually, she got over her anxiety and was her arrogant self again. I loved her no matter what; she returned that love in spades.
*
CALLIE
Late that same summer, Marc and I were walking in downtown Chillicothe, looking in the windows of some of the trendy shops. We encountered a dog carrier placed on a chair outside an antique store. A sign hanging from the carrier said: My name is Callie. Please take me home, or I’ll have to go to the shelter. Inside the carrier was a pretty calico cat about three years old.
If possible, Marc loves cats more than I do, so he immediately encouraged me to take another one. His beloved cat Bootsie had died the previous summer of old age, and he thought Al and I could handle another cat in our house. At the time, he was in college, so it was easy for him to suggest we take Callie home. Would Amy accept Callie? That was the question in both of our minds. We spoke to the shop owner and offered to adopt Callie, but the deal was off if she and our other cat, Amy, couldn’t get along. Of course, that was a big fat lie. Any time we’ve taken an animal into our house, it stayed. In my case, I could never stand the thought of someone surrendering a cat to a shelter since, in those days, sad to say, many did not leave them alive.
As luck would have it, Callie was the most docile cat I’ve ever had. She didn’t ask for much, only food, water, and lots of love. Of course, those needs we could oblige readily. As for Amy, the snob, she ignored Callie, and peace ruled in the house again… for a little while, anyway.
Callie had one unusual hobby that still makes me smile. In our Chillicothe backyard, we had two ponds, one for fancy goldfish and frogs, the other a much larger pond with about seventy Japanese Koi of varying sizes. Callie loved standing on the edge and staring at the water.
As I wrote in an earlier post, our Chillicothe house was built in 1840 and remodeled into a 1912 Craftsman Bungalow. Homes with inside running water were rare until the 1930s. However, even by 1940, nearly half of the houses in this country still lacked hot piped water, a bathtub or shower, or even a flush toilet. They eventually had handpumps that brought water inside from their cisterns, usually to a sink in the kitchen. Most of our various old homes, I realize now, had some version of a cistern/catchment system in the yard. A cistern is an underground reservoir to collect rainwater off the roof, usually from the gutters. Its walls are made of waterproof plaster or cement.
There was a three-foot square by five-inch thick cement slab on the ground near the exterior basement stairs of our Chillicothe house. I’d never paid it much mind until one day when I was sitting on the screened porch and saw Callie over by the cement block. I watched on, fascinated, as she appeared to push something down a hole at the edge of the slab. Later that same day, Callie was again near the block; only this time, she used her paw to push a stone along the ground. Again, I stood and leaned out to see what she was doing. After a short amount of time, once again, she’d rolled the stone closer to the hole under the slab. Walking out to stand next to her, I again watched in amazement while she knocked the stone down a hole at the base of the slab. Then we both heard a kerplunk as it landed below in what was obviously standing water. I was thrilled Callie had shown me that we had a cistern underneath that cement block and astonished that she was so smart to figure it out. Callie had amazingly invented a rock and water game to entertain herself. She seemed to love hearing the rock splash in the deep water below. Even though I was tempted, I never tried to pry the block off, as it was incredibly heavy. Down the road, when we lived in a 1925 Craftsman Cottage in Springfield, Ohio, I would uncover the cistern and use the collected rainwater to fill up my pond after I cleaned it each time. Callie continued her rock in the cistern water game until we moved from Chillicothe.
*
DION
I was washing the brick floor on the screened porch of our Chillicothe house with a mop and soapy water when I heard the sound of a kitten crying outside on the deck. He was a skinny little thing, a gray tiger about six weeks old and obviously hungry. I put some dry cat food on a paper plate and set it on the deck. He raced to the plate and ate everything so fast it was heartbreaking. Poor little thing, I thought. Before Al got home, I put him on the porch with food, water, and kitty litter and closed the door to the house. I took a deep breath and began to walk our street, asking neighbors if they’d lost a little gray kitten. Nope. I then walked the road behind ours with the same results. It looked like, once again, my heart ruled the day.
When Al came home from work, I was sitting on the back porch with the tiger kitten sleeping on my lap. He shook his head, came over, patted the cat, then asked me what we should name him. I had no idea, but a name popped out of my mouth, “What about Dion, after one of your favorite singers?” So that was it. We now had three cats and would soon move them, along with over 80 fish, to Marietta, Ohio.
Dion was a joy; he was dumb but sweet. He and Callie became good friends as soon as I got him fixed. Surprisingly, the person Dion loved the most was Al. Wouldn’t you know it, they bonded like brothers. Dion would sit nicely on Al’s lap, even when he was watching the Cleveland Indians lose another baseball game on television. I often found Dion draped around Al’s neck while my husband slept on the sofa. When Al got up to get a beer from the kitchen, Dion trotted behind him. When Al went to sleep in our bed, Dion slept by his feet. When Al left for work, Dion cried. I loved it. One of The Other People was now a cat lover!!!!
*
Amy, Callie, and Dion did not like Marietta at all. They mostly stayed inside. Sometimes Callie would go out with me because she liked to stare at the fish in our large ponds. Dion wanted to run off any stray cat that crawled into our yard from under the new cedar fence we had installed. Other than that, they seemed glad to go when we left Marietta two years later.
After we moved to Springfield, Amy was much happier. She was not an outdoor cat; she liked to go out sometimes but mostly stayed by my side as I checked my gardens. Al never cared for Amy that much because she was not easy to like. Late one Saturday afternoon, about two years after we moved there, she cried by herself under the cupboard in our dining room. It was a cry I had never heard from an animal, and it dawned on me that Amy might be going to die. When I picked her up, she cried like that again. I knew she was in pain; I could see it in her eyes. I rushed her to our vet, who confirmed she was very sick. He felt strongly that her kidneys were failing. Even in the short amount of time that she was in his office, Amy was genuinely upset. He offered to give her a shot to put her to sleep, but I said no. She needed to be home with me. I did want some medicine that would relieve her pain, and he gave it to me.
I gave her the pain medicine back at the house, and she relaxed in my arms. I did not want her to suffer, but I could tell she’d not live through the night. Amy could not hold her head up and could barely walk. I held her for a couple of hours, and she seemed to get comfort from that. Near the end, Amy gave up the pain and rested comfortably on my lap. I am glad she died in her home with me, and the moment she passed was bittersweet. It was almost as if I could see her spirit leave. Then, in the wee hours of the morning, she left me. And with tears streaming down my face, I said my prayer to send her spirit home.
When someone loves a pet, an animal they adopted, or one that came to them in other ways, perhaps they believe they are Guardians. It is admirable to love the pets we have taken into our homes. But a true Guardian loves the tough ones like Amy, a cat that did not or could not return the love you offered. A true Guardian sometimes adopts a chronically sick animal like Amy and is there for her until the end.
*
DION Part II
The house we bought in Springfield was a Craftsman Cottage, constructed in 1924 in a historic neighborhood called Ridgewood, just north of downtown. Our new old house was charming, with Juliet balconies off the second-story windows on the front. Gables on the front and back and a steep roof over a third-floor attic made the house look like an English cottage. One of the features I loved most was the oversized front door made of oak with a peek-a-boo window and wrought iron strap hinges, which resembled ones I’d seen in Ireland. The front yard was quite small, but I turned the fair-sized backyard into a large water garden and a paradise of flowers, hostas, and flowering shrubs. My fish flourished there, and the water garden was a bright spot for me in an otherwise unwelcome environment.
Our 1920s Ridgewood neighborhood was the shining star of the city, with just about every architectural style of the period represented on curved streets lined with lush trees and gas lights still working staged along the sidewalks. There were a few homes built in the l960s and later, but most are pristine examples of the styles of late 19th and early 20th century homes.
I tried my best to like our new town, but it was hard. Springfield has many commuters who work in nearby cities like Dayton and Columbus. In addition, most of the people in Ridgewood at the time worked out of town because many of the manufacturing jobs and industry had left years ago or were just about to close up shop. As a result, at that time, downtown Springfield was a wasteland of empty storefronts and sky-high vacant buildings from another era. At night the downtown streets sometimes became a causeway for drug dealers and vagrants. The community has tried to rejuvenate the core city with little success. Perhaps now, years later, things have changed for the better. I hope it has.
We lived in Springfield for 12 years, and I wanted to leave for just about all that time. However, the people in Ridgewood were not friendly; no one said hello when we walked the streets. I think it was months before one of our next-door neighbors introduced themselves, and then we didn’t see them for many more months. I believe the problem was partly mine. I have always enjoyed small towns with decent restaurants, shops, and friendly people. I did try my darndest, but after all those years living there, when we left---no one said goodbye to us.
The one real positive for Springfield is its bike path. The Rails to Trails path begins in Bellefontaine, about 40 miles north of Springfield, and ends in Cincinnati, 75 miles south. I could get on my bike, cross four side streets to the main road with a light, and be on the bike path in minutes. I rode my bike on the trails north and south, east and west, and enjoyed every mile. One stretch went along Buck Creek to a reservoir and state park, and I often rode that 30-mile round trip because it was so scenic. My goal was to ride my bike at least three times a week.
*
One day, as I returned from my ride, I walked my bike up our driveway to the side door. At once, I heard a mournful cry coming from our sweet Dion. I leaned the bike against the house and rushed to the sound. Dion was crumpled on the front stoop of the house next door. I hurried over to him and bent down. He was crying so faintly I swallowed hard. I ran my hand down the length of his body and quickly felt something wet. I looked at his back and saw blood and a wound directly above his spine. I gently picked him up, not wanting to scare him, and immediately noticed that his legs fell limp against my stomach. He was paralyzed. I went into the house, called the vet, got my keys and purse, then hurried to the car. I drove as fast as I legally could, with Dion moaning softly in the front seat. At a light, I looked down at him and started to cry but checked myself. I did not want to upset him any more than he already was.
I knew what the vet would say. Someone had shot Dion with a gun. The bullet had ruptured his spine, and he would never walk again. I held that sweet boy in my arms as the doctor put him to sleep. I cannot even go into the rest, but we did bury him next to Amy in the backyard under an old mulberry tree. When Al came home, he knew something was wrong, but I could not find the words to tell him. Every day since he’d entered our lives, Dion ran to the door to greet his best friend when Al returned from work. But not today. We sat downstairs, and I told Al what had happened. Dion rarely left our yard, but sometimes he sat on the front sidewalk of our neighbor’s house. Our neighbors on that side were cat lovers, so I knew they hadn’t shot him. But what kind of monster would do such a thing? Al asked me. Who would shoot an innocent little cat who only wanted love and affection and had never been destructive or aggressive? We could not believe someone who probably lived close to us in such a lovely neighborhood paralyzed our cat. I genuinely think Al took it harder than me.
We were devastated, and both of us poured our attention into Callie. But almost a year later, Callie died of old age. We had no idea how old she was, but we knew she’d have gone to a shelter without Marc and me. Callie had a good life with us, we loved her very much, and she was a happy cat. So when we buried our third cat in Springfield, I was determined never to have another one again. It just hurt too much when they left us.
*
KATY
One morning in late October, I was in the kitchen slicing apples for canning. The side door was open, and a cool breeze was flowing through the screen door. I looked out my large kitchen window and saw the Ginko tree in the front was beginning its annual lemon leaf drop. The sound of all those leaves falling off the tree at once was like heavy snow hitting the ground. Then, out of nowhere, I heard a cat meow, but there were no longer any cats in our house or in any of our neighbors. I walked over to the door and looked outside. The prettiest little black cat with long fur rolled like a ball on the driveway. I opened the door, and she strolled inside as if she owned it. She meowed again, and the sound melted my heart. She had no collar, and I hadn’t seen her on my walks or at any of the houses I passed daily. I felt sure someone had dropped her off, but she picked the right home to present herself as a prospective tenant. When Al arrived on the scene, he resisted. We sat in the living room and discussed the new occupant, who was coincidentally sitting between us. Hadn’t I promised never to have another cat again, he argued? Besides, this one was a male cat, he declared, and he still wasn’t over the loss of Dion.
I knew she was a female. I’d checked her out before Al arrived. She bounced from his lap to mine, then back, purring, rolling over, and crawling up his chest to lick his face sweetly. This little girl had the right moves down pat, I thought. She was a cutie, that’s for sure, with a winning personality. But all at once I looked closer at her belly. She was pregnant. I swallowed, then found the courage to tell my already reluctant husband.
Al said he didn’t believe it, thought the cat was a male, and didn’t want another feline in the house. The last time we had one, he said forcefully, someone shot it! Remember?
The very next day, I took her to the vet. Indeed, she was a female, about two years old and pregnant. In a few weeks, the vet said with a grin, you’ll have kittens in the house! He tested her for FIV and other issues, but she was negative on all counts. The Vet gave her two shots, then sent us home to build a nursery for the upcoming births.
Al wasn’t all that shocked that the cat was female. He knew I was right because when it comes to animals, I am almost always right! We both decided on a name: Katy. Time heals all wounds, as the saying goes. Katy moved into our hearts faster than she moved into the house. She was immediately the joy and laughter that’d been missing for a while.
Katy loved both of us equally, but she was with me day in and day out, and we became buddies. Al and I wondered how many kittens she’d have since her belly began to look like a soccer ball. We didn’t discuss keeping any of them, but the option was an open question. Knowing that Katy was an unusual cat (she had long fur, tufts in her ears and between her toes, and a long flowing tail), I felt I would have no problem finding them homes if her kittens looked and acted like their mother. I later learned Katy was what some breeders call a Raggamuffin Cat.
I had been working on a novel for a couple of years, and my office was in a small bedroom on the second floor. While typing away one morning, I heard a rustling in the small closet behind me. I walked over, opened the door, and saw that Katy was making a bundle out of a shirt that had fallen off a hanger. It was time, she was nesting, and I was responsible for creating the perfect place for her to have the kittens. I found a pristine cardboard box, cut out a large hole on one side, and put the softest old towels on the bottom. Of course, Katy was a prissy thing and strolled around the box sniffing its contents to see if this hospital room was up to her standards. I placed the nursery box in the second bedroom on an old blanket chest under a large window that looked out onto the water gardens. She followed me there and sat watching while I turned it one way and the other, trying to see which side had the best view out the window.
Al and I were overjoyed and the typical step-parents of a pregnant pet. The only other time we’d been step-parents to kittens was when a stray cat begged to enter our student apartment. Once inside, she quickly had three kittens, one of which became Marc’s cat Bootsie. Katy had been such a charmer that we were thrilled she’d found us. Every day for a week, I waited for the big event. Sometimes Katy would disappear in the house, forcing me to stop work and hunt through every room for her new hiding place.
One morning, I heard a different sound and went from room to room, trying to locate it. Inside our hall closet was Katy. She had pushed aside our boots and had delivered four beautiful kittens on a scarf draped on the floorboards. I was beyond delighted. But being my busybody mother, I moved her and the kittens into the nursery box upstairs. She’d had three all-black kittens that looked just like Katy with the same tufts and long hair. And then there was the fourth one. Al and I figured the fourth one favored her probably good-for-nothing father since she was a stripped gray tiger, the runt of the litter, plus feisty and wild from day one.
Every morning, Katy and her babies were missing from the nursery. During the night, she’d move her kittens one at a time to inappropriate (I thought) places in the house: under a bed, behind the sofa, in Al’s closet on top of his ties on the floor, a corner of the foyer behind a potted plant, and just about any place she could stuff them out of my view. Each time I moved them back to the nursery, insisting that it was my way or nothing. It got to be a game until I realized Katy wasn’t eating. I called our veterinarian and explained what had been going on. I asked why he thought she’d stopped eating. Did he think she was ill? His answer was simple:
Leave that poor mama cat and her kittens alone! You are upsetting them.
And so I did. Reluctantly. We had a lovely little secret room off the second bedroom where I could sit and look out the window. It was there that Katy installed her offspring, much to my delight. I could see them in the room, but I didn’t go in, I didn’t pick up the kittens, and I basically left them alone. Except I’d sneak into the bedroom, hide next to the dresser, and watch them covertly. It was a hoot being a nanny to four kittens; I would love to do it again someday.
In no time, the kittens had turned into circus clowns, climbing up on our bed with their mother and sleeping between Al and me. The three black kittens were charming like their mother; they rolled over and sashayed around the house with their tails in the air, playful as they were cute. The fourth one we called Julie after our son’s friend at the time. Julie was an instigator; she’d jump into the ball of black kittens and start fake fights on our bed. That was fine, except they’d have their fake fights on our bed in the middle of the night while we tried to sleep. Katy and her kittens had brought laughter into our house again, so how could we object?
Even though we didn’t plan on giving them away for another month since they were still nursing, I wanted to ensure I could find the right people to adopt them. So I walked the neighborhood, handing out fliers with pictures of the kittens and a heading that said:
Cutest Kittens Ever-Free to GOOD Homes---IN-PERSON INTERVIEW REQUIRED.
The flier included our names, address, and phone number. As I returned to our house, the phone rang: someone wanted one of the black kittens. The three black kittens were a hit, and in the end, we easily found them homes. Julie was as cute and feisty as the others, but no one had chosen her after the flyers went out.
We were okay with that, mainly because Julie was such a wild child and we liked her for it. Katy loved all her kittens, but Julie seemed to be her favorite. So we kept her until something happened that changed our plans.
The rest of this story will have to wait until I can take you back twelve years earlier to Chillicothe, the day when my parents visited and delivered some horrible news.
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