This back story begins with grief and despair but fear not for it has a good deal of hope and joy towards the end. Seems to be a lot of that in this pandemic year.
Regular viewers will remember two of my dear sweet girls (cats) from some of my videos. The sisters literally dropped into my hands many years ago left to me by a stray that had decided to give birth in the rafters of my garage. Looking back it was one of the best days of my life and even more so for my old man cat Hobbes that got three hot young girlfriends that year. I’m sure they doubled his lifespan and he was with us to the ripe old age of nineteen. They certainly kept me going.
After such a long history together with them all, my worst fear finally came to pass this year. Around Christmastime little Nigella succumb to old age and kidney failure. I was of course a wreck having been with her since her own kitten times eighteen years ago. As tragic as it was, I still had Little Bug with me to fight through the grief. While you could tell she too had to adjust to the loss of her sister, her energy was good and she still had her usual curiosity. Barely a moment passed that she wasn’t within sight of what her dad was doing. She and I had each other.
Unfortunately age spares no one and seven months later, it struck again. My last companion of nearly two decades died peacefully in my arms after a very short transition from her usual engaging self to what in retrospect I think she knew was the end. Her instinct was to hide away as sick cats do but in her last few days she came to me, laid down quietly in her usual spot, and left this world with a gentle purr.
Insert a blubbering mess of a man for a week. Tell a non-cat person and you’ll get blank stares but tell an old cat owner and you mercifully get sympathy and understanding. In a snarky sense, I want to ask people that don’t understand how they’d feel if they lost an 18-year old child. A child that never left your side for Nintendo and school friends and actually preferred your company.
The difference this time was that I was now, for the first time in over thirty years, coming home to a completely empty house. Let me assure you this is not a good mental place for even an affirmed hermit like myself. Sleeping next to someone for eighteen years will do that to a person. The agony of a house that had been geared towards ‘cat’ for so long meant I saw emptiness at every turn. I spent my days wearing myself out with work on the farm, putting my last girl to rest next to her sisters, and generally anything else I could manage to keep my mind elsewhere. I came home to eat, sleep, and leave again.
This slapdash coping mechanism managed to keep me sane and I had resolved to be cat-free for a time. After all, I’ve got a house to attempt to build and there’s always something to do out on the land. Maybe in the spring if a cat in need came along I’d consider bringing a little fur back into my life. Care to guess how long that idea lasted? The Great Cat Continuum can sense a void.
About a month into my solitude I came home and unusually for my old “indoor cat life”, left the doors open to get a good breeze. Stirring a cup of tea I looked over to find a visitor laying squarely on my doorstep as if she had always been there. In fact she felt sure an appointment had been set and that this was the right place. She informed me to clear my schedule because she was planning on spending the afternoon. This visitor was a young female cat with striking colours and black feet. And oh yes, she happened to be extra pregnant.
We whiled away the afternoon on the couch. There was exactly zero adjustment time on her part leaping next to me, settling in, and coaxing out half a bag of treats in the process. These visit went on for a few days so I knew I had to investigate her history. She was only about a week away from giving birth and had some issues that needed tending. Where had she come from?
Turns out she was brought here by a neighbour several doors down with good intentions but it turned out that wasn’t a good fit. I don’t think they realized she was pregnant early on and they had a big floppy dog that wasn’t making her natural nesting habits possible. Long story short, they graciously allowed me to take her as my own. A very responsible decision on their part.
I wish she had come to me earlier to get better nutrition started (more on that later) but as it was, I had a week to get her treated for fleas and tapeworms. This not being my first cat rodeo I already had all the medications necessary and did so immediately. Critical to get that cleared up before kitten day. She’ll need to be spayed at the earliest convenience with a full round of vaccinations but it’s obvious that she hasn’t been truly feral for her whole life. She’s too well adjusted to humans. She’s certainly got me well on the way to being trained properly.
She does suffer the call of the wild to run outside a few times a day but I notice she’s spending less and less time there preferring instead to guard the stoop with one paw on the door. I think she won’t enjoy the transition to winter inside but she’s clever enough to know a good cat spa when she finds one. The suspicion is that she was abandoned by a previous family but she won’t need to worry about that now. We live in a unique rural complex with plenty of green space and only a dozen residents in the drive at a crawl all of whom watch for her. Her need to explore in a safe space can be satisfied until I get a house built out on the farm with all the modern cat conveniences. Possibly even a barn, aka cat playground.
So after another week of anticipation, the kittens came at midnight. At least the first one did. The second waited a full four hours to arrive. A third sadly was still born and all were a fair bit underweight. I suspect the aforementioned nutrition issues had something to do with this and my best guess is that they were all 2-4 days premature. Worry not, after a tricky first ten days of constant attention both have made it above 180 grams. “Brother” is thriving well above 200 grams and “Sister” while lagging initially (and worrying me to death in the process) now keeps daily pace with her sibling. There’s a bit of rivalry for the best spot to nurse but I’m trying to keep that in balance so everyone gets their fair share. We tried a bit of bottle-feeding. “Nope. Not gonna eat that. Where’s Mum?” but I have it as an emergency backup if I sense a problem develops.
Here on day twelve eyes still aren’t open but that’s to be expected sometime this week. We’re upgrading to a bigger box shortly. Heating pads are slowly being turned down day by day. Mum is still eating like a horse and doing all the correct things kitten-covered cat mums should.
So fellow cat wranglers, you can see I’ve been pulled back into the fold after great loss. Funny how that happens, eh? The universe gives you what you need right when you need it and it’s clear to me now that I need them as much as they need me. If nothing else to honour and remember my last dear family of sisters that kept me going for two decades.
To be clear for those asking, these three are not available for adoption. It was clear after one day that I’ll be keeping them. I am easy cat mark.
Live stream coming soon to my YouTube Channel. Until then:
