Breakin' Our Hearts
Our nice old boy-cat Abe went missing again yesterday, and came home 20 hours later hot and listless and refusing all food and water. I kept him in our room last night, something I never do because generally he’s all over me, telling me in a thousand pink-tongued ways how much he likes me.Not last night. Last night he stared straight into the darkness like a man bracing himself for the worst. And so this morning I brought him to the vet who has him still. An hour ago his staff called to say that he's full of bacteria with two ear infections and a UTI and the last time he had the latter they cut off his penis so Gad what’s next? I am wondering.Abe and his sister Charlotte came into this house as the big present our kids gave us for our 25th anniversary. Here below is the story of that day, from way back in the days we were all a lot younger and death and illness seemed a million miles away:++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++When the plush velvety cat we all doted on was killed by a car, we almost felt we couldn’t get another one. What if the next one were killed too? How could we bear another such loss?The kids, of course, wanted a new cat immediately. In fact, they wanted two, and campaigned unremittingly for them. We put them off.“The house is so out of control!” we said. “Just let us get a little organized! Let me try to prioritize things for once and see if we can’t first sit down for meals together, without someone always standing at the sink like a stranger wolfing food at a hot dog stand.”But still they wheedled. Until quite suddenly - almost overnight - they stopped.Our anniversary was approaching and they began dropping the kind of hints that suggested they were planning something big.What did they have in mind? A pool table in the basement? A 30-foot trampoline in the yard? It wasn’t until the actual anniversary that we found out, as the two of us approached the supper table, after an especially psyche-shredding day.“Sit down, sit down!” cried the younger two excitedly. “OK, close your eyes and hold out your hands!”The two little cats were fresh from a shelter so meticulous they had had to bring with them not only an in-the-flesh adult relative, but actual documents proving we owned our home and were therefore free to take on the care of two tiny apostrophes of fur. Dave and I just looked at each other over the heads of the softly treading creatures in our laps.And so it was that instead of achieving an orderly household, or even dwelling on such a concept, we have spent the weary tag-end of this long long winter raising up a couple of newborns: Abe, the exact shade of pussywillows in March, and his sister Charlotte, all black and weighing not much more than your average candy bar.They were so small trying to climb our big stairs, they looked like a couple of Slinkies, tumbling up instead of down. They ate too fast and got sick and harbored various little hosts of the mite-and-worm sort. But under our good vet’s care, they have grown to be clean as whistles and today eat with table manners nicer than ours. Having had their Leukemia, Rabies and General Plague shots, they now begin to taste the pleasures of a delicate tails-up stroll in the dews of morning.And sure, one keeps sneaking into our room nights to sit on my head and scrabble wildly in my hair for 10 minutes, before falling asleep and waking to do it again so that not even our bed is organized. Yet I am content with my graying groom and my babies both old and new. Now I just close my eyes nights and pretend I am at the beauty shop - and that new girl, Charlotte, is doing Shampoos.
Charlotte in her baby days
