Mother Cat

Here's a true tale that will put me firmly in the ranks of the certifiable among some people. Several winters ago, when it was very cold and snowy, along about February, I had noticed a tiny black cat out on her own. There is an older trailer park out over behind my place, and very often people move away from there and leave their cats behind. Usually they have not been spayed or neutered either, and so quite the population of little strays had really grown up back there. I had very sadly removed one that had been killed by a car from the roadside and buried it. This little one was one of those, and I felt an inner urging to set out food for her. I already had 3 cats and wasn't looking for another one, but I had noticed this one often and as it was a very cold and snowy February, my heart went out to her.

I think the way our companion animals are often treated by the people they depend is not much short of barbarous. The way we let dead animals lie on the roadside, for example, or discard family pets because they become inconvenient or difficult to care for. Of course, short of letting them lie out dead on the roadside, many of us do that with our elderly relatives too. I think when Jesus exhorted us to care for our brothers and sisters, we can also interpret that to mean our furred and finned and feathered brethren, much in the spirit of Saint Francis. When Jesus said, "I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink; a stranger and you welcomed me into your home..." in the Gospel of Matthew, these words can also be applied to domesticated animals. I think it reflects the next level of compassion--caring not only for creatures just like us, but for the ones not like us. And, in domesticating them, we created their dependence on us. And though cats can survive fairly well in a feral state, it does not mean they have healthy, long lives. They are subject to illness, attacks by other animals and being killed by cars. They are very small! And also very vulnerable. Anyway, this is one way I have felt called to respond. I see animals in need almost every single day here in this little village, and so feel compelled to do something. Since I now have a full house of rescued animals, sometimes the best I can do is pray. But prayer works. And so, anyway, this little black cat, out in the cold and the snow.

I could see from my kitchen window, as I did the dishes mornings, that she was living in the crawl space beneath a vacant trailer. It was actually Irene's old trailer, a bright turquoise blue structure that reminded me of the best of the 1950's. It has a nice white screened-in porch on the front, and beautiful beds of perennial flowers that Irene carefully tended until her death the autumn before. The trailer had sat empty for months while her family figured out what to do with it. I would see the little black cat emerge in the mornings. She'd stretch in that langorous feline way, and then sit primly and give herself a bath. That was the closest I ever got to her, because if she was ever on our front porch eating, she'd disappear like a sleek, slim shadow the second I opened the door.

My daughter has a quiet gentle way with cats, and she has kind hands. Cats like her. And one night, she and I had had some kind of parent-teen argument, and she went out on the front step to sit and cool off in the soft darkness. As she sat there, she used her gentle ways to cajole the little black cat over to her. She asked me if the cat could come inside. Feeling bad about our argument, I told her yes, but just for the night, and just in her room.

The next morning, I went into her room to check out the cat. She was very friendly and sweet, and, not much more than a kitten herself. She was also very pregnant. As soon as I discovered that, I had to keep her inside. I would worry about her too much otherwise, her and those tiny kittens out in the cold. Young kittens are susceptible to all kinds of upper respiratory infections, and also conjunctivitis--what we call pink eye when our kids get it. No, too much. We had a spare room that was used mostly for storage, and so I set her up in there. It adjoined my daughter's room and so she could have the cat come and visit whenever she wanted.

When the cat would snuggle on my chest, I could feel her unborn kittens moving around inside of her, moving their legs, like my own baby daughter kicked inside of me when I was pregnant. It felt like a miracle. But I also noticed the mother cat had worms, and after I read about the possible bad effects of internal parasites on the kittens, I decided to take her to the vet to be wormed.

Not that I could actually afford the care of another companion animal. But a woman in my church is a vet with a heart as big as the world, and she knew of my precarious financial situation. I took the cat to see her, and she allowed me to pay on a sliding scale based on income. I was grateful for her compassion. But I did not expect what she suggested next. She began to explain to me the problems of animal over-population, especially among cats and dogs. She said I would never find homes for those kittens, and there would probably be at least 4 since that is the average cat litter. She suggested I bring in the cat to be spayed as soon as possible--meaning she would also remove and destroy the kittens.

I am pro-choice when it comes to reproductive rights. Absolutely and totally. I believe it is a private and not simple decision a woman should be allowed to make. In the early stages of pregnancy, that is. As I stood there across the examining table from my friend the vet, with the Mother Cat between us, purring loudly, I glanced out the window behind her to see her own kids playing outside. I told her that I understood with my head the logic of what she was suggesting, but I could not even begin to contemplate it in my heart. I had felt those kittens moving their little legs. I told her that. I felt a sick pain in my heart. I then said to her, "What would God think of this?'

She had no answer for that and neither did I. In respect to her professional judgment, I scheduled an appointment for Monday morning. This was a Friday. And then I went home, sick at heart. What did God think of this?

When I told my daughter the plan, she said, "No way."

I said, "Well, we have a weekend between now and then, I can always cancel it. But the vet is right," I insisted, "we will have a really hard time finding homes for these cats, and I am not sure I can afford them."

The next day, Saturday, my daughter was gone a lot of the day at a friend's house, and I saw little sign of the Mother Cat. I supposed she was exhausted from our outing to the vet. Later on in the evening, my daughter came home and asked to sleep over at her friend's, and then went into her room to get some clothing. She asked me where the Mother Cat was, and I told her I hadn't seen her all day. When my daughter left again, I decided to go into the Mother Cat's room and look for her. I opened the door and called her name. She came out from behind an old trunk where I store blankets. She was thinner and her back end was wet. And then I heard high pitched squeaks. The kittens had been born!

I had my answer from God. There was a miracle right there in my spare room, in the form of new little lives. New lives! Right inside my house! I felt a thrill of joy in my heart.

And of course, being a mother myself, I immediately began to worry.....

But that's another story.

Until next time, I remain, your friend, Rozenkraai