Tales of My Mother #23

talesofmymother02

This one's about my mother but it's more about her cats. WARNING: A lot of this story is about cats dying and at the end, my mother. But they all died of natural causes — each cat after living what would be considered a long life for a cat; my mother, once she was in her nineties. For a woman who smoked a pack or two of cigarettes every day since she was a teenager, that's a helluva long existence.

If reading about all this death will not bother you, proceed. If it will, click here to be directed to a website that will check and see if your computer is on.

Now, if you're still with me: Some people love dogs. Some people love cats. In my house when I was growing up, we loved cats…one in particular. We had a wonderful one we called Baby and she was everything you could want in a pet. She was affectionate. She loved to lie on my father's stomach when he sat in his easy chair in the living room. She loved to crawl under the covers with me when I was asleep in my bed.

And no mouse ever dared venture onto our property when Baby was on patrol. She was unrivaled when it came to catching and killing rodents. The only thing Baby ever did that my mother didn't like was to occasionally snag a lizard or a bird. At some point, I think Baby actually sensed that the woman who fed her didn't like those kills and she thereafter confined her hunting to mice. Here is a photo of Baby…

Actually, Baby did one other thing we didn't like. She died. She lived a pretty long life for a cat but eventually, she left us. It was very sad in our house when that happened and my parents resisted the idea of getting another cat…not right away, at least.

A few years later, I moved out of the house and into my own apartment. To deal with the new sense of emptiness they felt in their home, my folks decided it was time for another cat. So one day, I drove my mother to a cat orphanage she knew about.

It was a big house — two big houses, side-by-side, actually — filled with cats. There must have been 150+ in each house and if you were allergic, you would have dropped dead inside of three minutes in either building. Even if you weren't, the aroma from several dozen litter boxes might do you in.

Some of the cats, sensing a chance to be adopted, came up to us and rubbed up against our legs. A few of them even performed. I'm not sure if it was on this visit there or a later one but there was one adorable little feline who rushed to us, hopping on its hind legs and clapping its front paws together. You could almost hear it chanting, "Please take me home with you! Please take me home with you!" We wanted to but the lady who ran the cat orphanage said that cat was not available for adoption and she wouldn't say why.

That first visit, my mother was overwhelmed by the choices. She said, "I wish I could take them all home" before the smell in the place reminded her that might not be a good idea. She finally selected a lovely tan pussycat who seemed very affectionate. My mother signed the adoption papers by which she promised to treat the cat well, never let it out of the house and to bring it back to the orphanage if things didn't work out. The superintendent lady said, "Too many people, if they don't get along with the cat, just open the door and kick it out to become a stray."

I made a cash donation to the orphanage and we took Aurora — that's what my mother named her — back to my parents' house and released her from the cat-carrier…

…whereupon Aurora instantly turned into a snarling, hissing, spitting monster. She hated her new home and she wouldn't let anyone within three feet of her. I have no photos of her because I couldn't get close enough to take one…and she also wasn't around that long. After a few days of hoping Aurora would get acclimated, my mother decided to give up. She called me and said, "That cat just howls all night as if she's in pain. Can you come over and somehow trap her and take her back?"

It wasn't easy but I did it. I put on a heavy jacket and gloves and chased her around the house for a half-hour. Finally, I grabbed her up and she screamed and tried to claw me into confetti. Somehow, I managed to stuff Aurora back into the cat-carrier and drive her back where she came from. We released her back into the house there and she instantly reverted to a friendly, affectionate and docile creature. She gave out with a happy purr and a "meow" that almost sounded like: "Thanks but don't do that again!"

The superintendent of the orphanage told me, "That's pretty much what happened when someone before you took her home. I think we're going to have to just keep her here the rest of her life."

A few weeks later, we gave it another try. I drove my mother back to the orphanage and she picked out another cat. This one really wanted to live with my parents so all was happy until it died a few years later. Back we went to the cat orphanage where my mother picked out another one which she named Black. For obvious reasons…

Black was a good cat and I think she served my parents well for four or five years. I may be a bit off on my cat chronology here but I think there was one more before I took my mother back to the cat orphanage for what turned out to be the last time. She took a long time considering each potential pet in the two houses — perhaps as many as 300 of 'em — before she'd narrowed it down to two. One was almost identical to Black.

"I can't decide between them," my mother said. I reminded her, "There's no law that says you can't have two cats." She smiled at me and said, "I was hoping you'd say that." A half-hour later, we were unboxing two pussycats. My mother named the smaller one "Kleiner," which is a name that in some languages means "smaller." Kleiner, whose name soon turned into "Kleina," was as friendly and affectionate as Baby had been. The black one got the name "Black II." Here's a photo of the two of them…

I took that photo the day we brought them home and it was almost the last time I saw Black II. She was never as openly hostile as Aurora but not long after she moved in, Black II developed a strong fear of men. She would roam the house freely and even let my mother pet her but only if there was no male in the building. If there was, she sprinted for my parents' bedroom and hid under their bed.

Since my father was retired and home almost all the time, Black II was under that bed almost all the time. During sleeping hours, she'd sneak out to eat and use the litter box. Most of the time, she was under the bed and probably directly under him. He almost never saw her…

…and the only other time I did was a few years later when my mother called and said she hadn't seen Black II for a day or so and there was a foul smell in the bedroom. I had to go over, extract the body and take it away as my mother sat in the living room, not wanting to see any of this.

By this point, my father had passed away. Black II and Kleina — and later, just Kleina — were good company for my mother. Both cats lived good lives and Kleina was around for quite a while. When my mother was hospitalized, as she often was during her last twenty years on this planet, she was more concerned about the feeding of the cat(s) than she was about her own welfare. I would go over to tend to that and to litterbox cleaning…or sometimes, her neighbor Betty Lynn would attend to such matters.

Eventually, Kleina passed away. When I asked my mother when she wanted to go back to the cat orphanage, she said (sadly) that she didn't. She was having enough trouble taking care of herself by then and she was afraid she wouldn't do right by a cat. She asked, "What if when I opened the door, it got out? I wouldn't be able to chase her. What if I was hospitalized for a long time? You or Betty would have to come over every day." So she never had another cat.

But I did, sort of. As some of you may remember, I used to feed stray cats in my backyard and for years, always had between one and five out there plus occasional guests for dinner. One regular tenant was an extremely affectionate older feline we called The Stranger Cat. He eventually never left my yard except when my lovely friend Carolyn would let him inside. He'd sleep on a towel in my kitchen while she prepared a meal for us. He truly was a cat who loved being petted and held.

During my mother's catless years, I had to take her to Kaiser Hospital every week or two for some sort of checkup or in-patient treatment. When we were ready to leave Kaiser, I'd say to her, "Would you like to stop off and visit The Stranger Cat?" Sometimes, she was too tired and just wanted to be taken straight home. But sometimes, she'd smile almost impishly and say, "Maybe just for a short visit."

My mother was at that point usually in a wheelchair. She could walk around her house because she knew it so well and it was such a small house but when she went out, she used a wheelchair. There was no way she could get up either the front or back steps of my house or even into the backyard so I'd just pull into the garage and she'd wait in my car while I went and got The Stranger Cat.

He was always there and he seemed to enjoy what transpired as much as she did. I'd carry him over to the open passenger door of my car, place him on my mother's lap and she'd pet him and rub his face and just love the feel of his fur and the soothing, contented purr he sometimes gave off. This would go on for five or ten minutes before she'd hand him back to me and say, "You'd better take me home now." I'd return The Stranger Cat to my yard and drive my mother home.

On that drive to her house, she'd be about as happy as I saw her the last few years of her life. She was very depressed about her deteriorating health and while her doctors prescribed cheer-up medication, nothing made her feel as good as a few minutes of petting The Stranger Cat.

The Stranger Cat died peacefully at an unknown but very old age in May of 2012. I didn't tell my mother and when she asked how he was, I'd lie and say, "Great except that he really misses you." By that point, her medical problems were more acute. When I drove her home from Kaiser that last year, it was always after a long stay, usually including a week or more in a nursing home elsewhere. So she never asked about swinging by my place to pet The Stranger Cat. If she had, I don't know what I would have done.

She died the following October. All through her last few years, as she kept being hospitalized and as it became harder and harder to see or hear or get around, she kept telling me that she wished Assisted Suicide was an option; that she wanted it to be over. When it was, I was glad she was out of physical pain and that she went before she became totally blind, which was probably only a few months away. And I was also glad that she never found out about The Stranger Cat.