When Cats Die

 

      Cats are mysterious creatures.  I grew up knowing dogs, not cats and never really appreciated felines nor even liked them.    Mostly they annoyed me.  Dogs are so understandable, humanlike, man’s best friend as they say.   Owning a dog is somewhat like owning a best friend only perhaps a little more satisfying.  The dogs we’ve had reflect back love and devotion as a best friend will but without requiring the element of mutual relationship responsibility.   If you are a somewhat decent owner it is actually almost impossible to offend your dog.  Dogs always forget and return with a smile and hopeful wag of the tail no matter what the offense may have been.  Cats on the other hand as any cat ‘owner’ knows are never owned.  They deign to allow you to dwell with them and to serve their needs.

 

   Perhaps it is that element of cat ownership or the lack there of, which has revealed the true failing of my spiritual life, and why it has taken me so long to warm up to them, cats that is.  Humility, and the lack of mine, has been displayed in my relationship with the   intrepid cat.   Dogs are humble.  Cats are too, demonstrated by the very firmness of their own interior knowledge of their instinctive pre-eminence.  Of course being human, speaking personally that is, my innate conceit is challenged by the Cat’s humble superiority.  

 

     Foxy was the first cat I learned to like but before knowing her, I knew Tony.   Tony was the first cat that lived with us.  He was a refugee from a lobster trap found by my husband near the docks in Boston.  Tony the cat from Southie, I only tolerated.  Upon arriving at work one morning, John heard the feeblest of cries, coming from an apparently abandoned shed and being a cat lover and friend of cats, he had to investigate.     He found the tiny kitten barely alive, trapped amidst the dead bodies of its’ siblings in a lobster trap that had indeed done its work trapping.  A passing car had hit their mother, leaving Tony the sole survivor, his unfortunate siblings having starved to death.

 

 

      Of course Tony rode home that day to begin his new life in the suburbs.  He was content.  I on the other hand, wanted no part of him or any cat.  He became, within a short span of time a big old Tom Cat, picking fights with any available other feline.  Some body part of his was always bleeding and in need of expensive veterinary care. One time the entire skin of his tail had been ripped down to the tail tip, as if some vicious opossum had clamped down on Tony and recognizing defeat, Tony had simply run in the opposite direction. Amputation was necessary.

       

      He had an incessant and unquenchable hunger that stemmed no doubt from his early experiences of deprivation.  I remember one time not clearing the dinner leftovers rapidly enough as Tony managed to devour an entire large bowl of leftover spaghetti, sauce included, before we had even finished our meal.   From that time on I recall, cats tripping me, cats on counters, cats in bed with us, cats mad, cats marking territory, usually my husband’s side of the bed, “thank you God for small mercies” and cats with fleas.  

 

      Now Foxy…  Foxy lived with us for a little over a year and she didn’t live longer than that.   We had finally verged into the realm of dog ownership about the same time as we brought Foxy into our family.  Humble was the dog’s name.  He was a three-month-old Black Labrador retriever. That says it all, if you have ever been ‘mad’ enough to do such a thing as own a Lab pup and kitten at the same time.  If you have, you know of what I speak.  At that time we had moved from Medway to the beautiful and scenic town of Sutton Ma into a small-antiquated cape on the main throughway to neighorboring Oxford.    Our desire was for an antique house and it certainly was antique in certain respects but not in the ways we’d hoped for.  The well was surely of the original shallow and hand dug variety and the septic was no doubt in its original form desperately needing updating.  The home itself was sadly lacking in original detail, although it was picture perfect from the outside.   Our family had grown to three children ages 12, 8 and 4, two

parakeets, Bud and Sky, the puppy and a kitten.   The kitten we named Foxy.

 

 

     Foxy was named for her bright orange coloring and bushy tail. She was foxy indeed, but most importantly, she didn’t annoy me.  She ate only cat food, never scratched, and never tried to trip me in an effort to get my attention. I liked her for her mature and undemanding ways. When she became a mother cat I grew to admire her even more.  She was firm yet gentle in the mothering of her kittens.  Rather than waste time bothering me for her extra nutritional needs, she simply provided for herself.  She was a marvelous hunter.  And my garden thrived that year, as there was a dearth of small critters eating my much labored over produce. 

     From the start, she and Humble became the very best of friends.  I can remember her leading Humble on wild games of chase throughout our tiny house.   One particular time I recall Humble being a rather overweight sixth month old puppy leaping off our newish delicate queen Anne style couch in hot pursuit of Foxy’s tail. I was so proud and pleased with that couch.  It was the first couch we had ever bought and it was beautiful. I waited ten years before we could afford to buy that couch.   By the way, Humble never could catch her. 

 

     That wild and memorable scene still brings a smile to my face, demonstrating how the passage of time can wear down the conceit of even the most resistant cat owner.  I had finally learned that I simply could not rule over any cat and perhaps I should accept a cats being a cat and the obvious limitations of my humanity.  My reluctant growth in humility and resignation was due in no small part to the instinctual superiority of will of the CAT.   If cats were to be part of our life, and John would have it no other way, then a long awaited delicate antique style couch would necessarily be subordinate to the wants of the cat.

 

 

        It was a bright and sunny early summer day and my girlfriend Ann had just left after a pleasant mornings visit when the inevitable happened.   Ann, a cat lover herself, was the one bearing tidings of sadness that day, not joy.  She had hardly pulled out of our drive when she returned with the news of Foxy’s sad demise.  You see our road had become something resembling a small highway, a trucker’s delight, few if any cops, almost no lights and no stops.   “ Louise I think Foxy’s been hit.” she said before I had even finished smiling my surprised re-welcome.   “It’s an orange cat.”  It’s pretty bad”, she continued.  I was going to run out to the road but my oldest daughter suddenly appeared asking what was the matter. She knew something was wrong by my friend’s expression.  I called John to investigate and he dutifully grabbed a shovel and wheelbarrow and headed towards the road.  Ann said her goodbyes once again and Sarah burst into tears. Technically speaking, Foxy was Sarah’s cat.  As I attempted to comfort Sarah our little son made his appearance and with his large worried eyes, he asked the same question.   I told him simply that Foxy had been hit by a car and she had died.  He promptly burst into tears as well.   Sarah’s head was now on my shoulder and Gabe’s little hands were grabbing my leg, both were crying with something like abandon, when our middle child came running outside to join the family gathering.  Abby arrived just in time to see her father entering the driveway and pushing the remains of Foxy in the wheelbarrow up the small slope of our drive and into the yard.  I turned towards her as she echoed for the third time,  “What happened?”  As I answered for the third time, I was somewhat relieved, although surprised, that she did not burst into tears as her brother and sister had, rather she stared intensely at the wheelbarrow for a moment, and then spun on her heels and ran swiftly back into the house.

 

   . Perhaps five minutes later, I was still trying to calm the roiling sea of emotions pouring out of both Sarah and Gabe, when I twisted around and saw that Abby had returned.  She had a somewhat enigmatic little smile upon her face and exuded a quiet confidence.  “Don’t worry,” she said.  “It’s O.K.”  I questioned her, “What’s O.K.?”  She just repeated herself assuring me once again that  ”It’s O.K.”   “What do you mean Abby” I attempted once more to gain an explanation of what was O.K.   “I saw Him,” she said with matter of fact assurance. Then she smiled.  “What do you mean? Who did you see?” I asked.   “I saw God” she replied. “You saw God?” I queried somewhat doubtingly.  “Yes I saw God”, she returned in her pragmatic non-emotional way.   “You saw God”, I said once again making a statement that was really only my repeated question.  She nodded and continued to smile.  Then I smiled in return and asked what any reasonable person would ask, “ Well what does he look like?”  She waved her hands back and forth at me rather impatiently, and replied, “Oh you know He’s up in the clouds just what you’d think, He has a white beard.’’ He was in a rocking chair. “Oh really” I replied with some incredulity.  “Yes, and in His lap was Foxy and He was patting her.”   Then Abby’s eyes grew wider and her sky blue eyes sparkled as the sometimes do.   She continued explaining, “I asked Him when I went inside, whether or not, when cats die, ‘Do they go to people heaven or do they go to cat heaven?’  Then her smile grew a little wider still and she nodded saying, “They do.  They go to people heaven.”  Her smile brightened  even more and became as the noon day sun on a summer day.  

 

 

     I couldn’t help but be a little awed by Abby’s ‘vision’ of God, if that ‘s what it was. Truth is, She asked an honest question and she got an honest answer.  I don’t know about the theology of Cats and heaven but there is a lot I don’t know.   What I do know is that children more than adults, have the gift of clear sight and simplicity and we should follow their example in the realm of faith.  Jesus said so.  “ Unless you become as a little child, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.”  

P.S.

Several years back I did a painting about this story.  My brother owns it today and it’s still one of my favorites.   It’s called, When Cat’s Die Do They Go To People Heaven?

If you would like to see it, you can check out my web page highlighted on the full profile page 

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