The Cats' Tale

"The smallest feline is a masterpiece." ~ Leonardo da Vinci

April is the official birthday month of our cats. We have four of them, and this year they are 15 years old! We lost one of our cats last fall, our dear Mama Kitty, pictured here at right. Animal lover that I am, I am going to indulge myself and "blog" a little about their story ...

Fifteen years ago I was a college senior and my brother was graduating high school (how's that for giving my age away?). My parents threw us a big party that summer, and during the festivities, we heard over the din, the sound of mewing ... it led us to a crawlspace underneath our house. And there, much to our surprise, was a family of cats ~ a mother cat and her four kittens. Oh, were they cute!

To make a long story short ~ and it is a long story, one that someone like me could make much longer ~ after a dramatic rescue one night from a hungry raccoon, we ended up taking the brood into our home. We set to work on taming them, for they were strays, and basically feral. Our intent was to give away each of them, but finding good homes proved unsuccessful, and so we ended up keeping them all.

A year later I was engaged to be married, and as I had become the cats' primary caregiver (as well as the most emotionally invested), I joked with my dear husband-to-be, a decidedly non-cat person, that these felines would be part of my dowry! So it was we kept this little clan together, moving them from house to house ...

Mama Kitty, our once "wild" cat, was perfectly glad to be safely and securely inside. An open door was no temptation to her ... the nearest she liked to get was looking out a window, perhaps appreciating just how good she had it now. And what a good cat she was.

She looked after us all in her own way. She would "capture and kill" the stray puppet or sock, and "call" to her children to come get their supper. On more than one night did she call for us, when one of the boys became ill; she would lay on their bed till we came, and not until things were under control would she take her leave of the situation. And with each of my babies, she knew when it was "time" ... before even the first pangs of labor set in, she would appear at my side, and there she would stay until I had left for the hospital.

She never harmed a soul, and was always friendly and sweet ...

We miss you, Mama Kitty.