Cats Come Back

You may have read that both of my elderly cats died this year. Taty died in January, and Willow died in early July. The kids and I had decided we would get a new cat or two, but I was in no rush. It was nice not to have to mess with cat food and litter pans for once.

But truthfully, we missed them. The floors were quiet. There were no furry things trying to climb into our laps. Our small cluttered house seemed.... empty. Then we had another animal visitor- a squeaky four legged one. Our house is old and full of cracks and holes. I try to keep them patched by every once in a while Mr. Mousey finds his way in.

It was at this time the ghost arrived. Willow had been dead about a month and when I stepped out the front door on my way to work in the early morning I was surprised to see her sitting in her usual spot. I guess surprised isn’t the right word- perhaps “weirded out?” She ran away at once and I drove to work. I can accept that there are ghosts. I’ve encountered them before.

But this was no ghost. It was a cat that looked exactly like Willow. Same fur, same face. It sat in all her old places and liked to lie about three feet from where we buried her. It stayed away from us. I watched it, tried to approach it, but it was skittish. It turned out to be a he, bigger than Willy, rather handsome in his long lines and strong face.

My youngest son suggested that perhaps it was in fact Willow’s son. It’s a nice idea but Willow never had any children.

Then the dead mice began to appear. First one in the drive way. Then some well eaten ones in the back- perhaps even regurgitated. Cats eat things and then throw up the things they can’t digest. I decided that Willow’s Ghost, as we had begun to call him, deserved something for his mouse work and I brought out some cat treats.

He’s had cat treats before because that broke the ice between us. Now we are fast friends. I feed him twice a day and he hangs around. We pet him and he will even sit in our lap. One day soon I’ll get him to the vet and then perhaps he’ll come inside. He’s already been hinting at it. We’ve stopped calling him Willow’s Ghost too- now it’s just Ghost. But still, it’s a little freaky, don’t you think?

Cat number two came to us during this time as well, but via a very different route. My charming girlfriend lives in a different town. She is sometimes a bit of magnet for animals. She was visiting her aged father out in the country when she heard some crying- and she found a battered tiny kitten in a ditch.

She took “Ditch Kitty” to the vet. The little cat, estimated to be about 1 month old, had a bit of a mashed face- the vet suggested it had been thrown from a moving car. Most of the lower teeth were gone and infection had already moved in to the nose, which was a bloody mess. There was some damage to the side of the jaw too.

The vet was not optimistic, and encouraged my sweetie to leave the kitten with them and select a nice kitten from somewhere else. But my sweetie is stubborn when she gets her hackles up. No, she would not leave Ditch Kitty. She brought her home. She had to make several trips back to the vet and the kitten went through two courses of

antibiotics but the tenacious thing clung to life. It put on weight, slept a lot, became active and bright eyed. My girlfriend already has a Noah’s Ark of pets, so she gave Ditch Kitty to us.

She is so tiny. She’s about seven weeks old now. She loves to play. At this point she is just a stomach with legs and she is hilarious as she dashes all over the place. She eats well and uses the litter pan.

Ditch Kitty beside an ordinary pen

She is very respectful, so far, when crossing a Scape map- we usually play on the floor. For some reason she likes to sleep with me (the smartie has already identified me as he-who-opens- cans). It has been years and years since I’ve had a kitten and my children don’t remember kittens at all, so it is amazing fun.

We still haven’t found a good name for Ditch Kitty. We’ve been trying but nothing seems to fit so far. Some of the names that have been suggested are: Soul Ripper, Artemis, Armageddon, Sneezy, Wizard and Amphora.

The next hurdle is to introduce Ghost to Ditch Kitty. If Ghost can put up with all that kitteny nonsense, he can have the run of the place. We are happy. Our new cats have found us, swelling our hearts- making the holes left by our dead friends seem smaller.