|
|
|
Four years ago, we were blessed with the arrival of a six to eight-week-old kitten. Gray and striped, he was a classic and ordinary American shorthair feline. His most distinguished characteristic was a vocal volume that cold rattle you right out of bed at 2 a.m. and that is just what he did the night he arrived at our house.
Sound asleep, we were jolted awake by his megaphonic meowing as he made his way into a new and uncertain world.
He was quick to accept a helping hand and hard to chase away,
He knew how to find a home.
About that same time several other gray tabby kittens appeared around town. We wondered if it was it an entire litter that had been dropped off. There was one near the library and one near the Granite Falls Bank. They all were used to human hands. Seems like all of them found some sort of home.
Not long before that, our 19- year-old cat gracefully died and left us with a bit of a hole in our lives. Despite that obvious vacancy, I was reluctant to allow some stray kitten to take up residence around our place. But he wasn’t going away. There was a decision to be made and it wasn’t going to be our decision. This little dark-gray kitten determined that he would stay put. There was no doubt in his mind that our house was where he was going to live.
There is just a bit of a cat curmudgeon lurking somewhere inside me and it comes to the surface at times like that. I wasn’t sure that we were ready to have another feline in our midst. He wasn’t having any of it and proved so by hopping up onto my lap and going to sleep. How can you dislike a stray kitten that trusts you that much after knowing you so little?
We have had a cat or two around the house for years. They seem to hang around just fine and you get used to them and their finicky ways. They seem to grow on you and this kitten grew on us pretty fast. Our son Seth named him Cosmo and somehow it seemed to fit. He just enjoyed being affectionate. Our older cat didn’t care for him much but got used to him, too. He never grew to be a very big cat but what he lacked in stature he made up for with personality.
Time after time, he used those voluminous vocal chords to let you know his reaction to things and what his needs were. He also used them to wake us up before the morning alarm went off. When you drove up to the garage with the car windows rolled up, you could hear his voice from his perch on our backyard deck.
He relied on his loud voice. And why not? After all, it was that same voice that landed him a place to live with a family who seemed to keep feeding him and didn’t seem to mind his friendly ways. He wove his way into everyday life at our house as if it were by design.
I guess that’s why it seemed so strange when he didn’t come home Friday morning after spending the evening out of the house. He didn’t show up when we called his name on Saturday or on Sunday, either. We found no sign of him on any road near our place and no sign of him in the woods across the street.
He seemed to be gone without a trace. We’ve had cats disappear for three days in the past but they usually came home, a little worse for wear, but home, none-the-less.
Sunday evening when we were watering flowers and scratching around the yard, the air cracked with a loud but mournful sound. The cat who had decided to move in with us four years ago came limping and dragging his way across the street and up our driveway, looking much worse for wear but determined to be at home.
We were pretty happy to see him but it was obvious that he was in need of some rest and care. He looked like he had been in the fight of his life with something much bigger than him, maybe a coyote, a fox or some stray dog. There was plenty of pain in his voice. and it wasn’t so loud. He was home and that’s all he wanted.
On Monday, on his way to the veterinarian, he died.
He was just a stray kitten who had found a home and grew up with a family he liked. He came to us for free and left us quite a bit richer and all too soon.
Cosmo was a good cat.
Four years ago, we were blessed with the arrival of a six to eight-week-old kitten. Gray and striped, he was a classic and ordinary American shorthair feline. His most distinguished characteristic was a vocal volume that cold rattle you right out of bed at 2 a.m. and that is just what he did the night he arrived at our house.
Sound asleep, we were jolted awake by his megaphonic meowing as he made his way into a new and uncertain world.
He was quick to accept a helping hand and hard to chase away,
He knew how to find a home.
About that same time several other gray tabby kittens appeared around town. We wondered if it was it an entire litter that had been dropped off. There was one near the library and one near the Granite Falls Bank. They all were used to human hands. Seems like all of them found some sort of home.
Not long before that, our 19- year-old cat gracefully died and left us with a bit of a hole in our lives. Despite that obvious vacancy, I was reluctant to allow some stray kitten to take up residence around our place. But he wasn’t going away. There was a decision to be made and it wasn’t going to be our decision. This little dark-gray kitten determined that he would stay put. There was no doubt in his mind that our house was where he was going to live.
There is just a bit of a cat curmudgeon lurking somewhere inside me and it comes to the surface at times like that. I wasn’t sure that we were ready to have another feline in our midst. He wasn’t having any of it and proved so by hopping up onto my lap and going to sleep. How can you dislike a stray kitten that trusts you that much after knowing you so little?
We have had a cat or two around the house for years. They seem to hang around just fine and you get used to them and their finicky ways. They seem to grow on you and this kitten grew on us pretty fast. Our son Seth named him Cosmo and somehow it seemed to fit. He just enjoyed being affectionate. Our older cat didn’t care for him much but got used to him, too. He never grew to be a very big cat but what he lacked in stature he made up for with personality.
Time after time, he used those voluminous vocal chords to let you know his reaction to things and what his needs were. He also used them to wake us up before the morning alarm went off. When you drove up to the garage with the car windows rolled up, you could hear his voice from his perch on our backyard deck.
He relied on his loud voice. And why not? After all, it was that same voice that landed him a place to live with a family who seemed to keep feeding him and didn’t seem to mind his friendly ways. He wove his way into everyday life at our house as if it were by design.
I guess that’s why it seemed so strange when he didn’t come home Friday morning after spending the evening out of the house. He didn’t show up when we called his name on Saturday or on Sunday, either. We found no sign of him on any road near our place and no sign of him in the woods across the street.
He seemed to be gone without a trace. We’ve had cats disappear for three days in the past but they usually came home, a little worse for wear, but home, none-the-less.
Sunday evening when we were watering flowers and scratching around the yard, the air cracked with a loud but mournful sound. The cat who had decided to move in with us four years ago came limping and dragging his way across the street and up our driveway, looking much worse for wear but determined to be at home.
We were pretty happy to see him but it was obvious that he was in need of some rest and care. He looked like he had been in the fight of his life with something much bigger than him, maybe a coyote, a fox or some stray dog. There was plenty of pain in his voice. and it wasn’t so loud. He was home and that’s all he wanted.
On Monday, on his way to the veterinarian, he died.
He was just a stray kitten who had found a home and grew up with a family he liked. He came to us for free and left us quite a bit richer and all too soon.
Cosmo was a good cat.
