The Cat Chronicles 

I guess I have to preface my departure from my usual posts by saying that writing has become very difficult. There are just too many emotions I have had to tamp down lately with all that’s going on with Mom (dementia/Alzheimer’s) and Dad now in a Convalescent facility. Writing has been one of my outlets and I have missed it but the words just haven’t come. One thing I can still write effortlessly about is cats. 

I hope you come with me (and bear with me) on this little journey. Prayers will be woven into all I write in these posts as you will find. 

For every hard thing and great thing, and everything in between, for the past 33 years cats have played a central part in every change, monumental and otherwise in my life. I didn’t grow up with cats, we had dogs. My Mom and Dad had one when we were small but I don’t remember him. They said he was crazy, but I think they just didn’t know what to do with a cat. For example, you can’t drive two hours with a cat in the car to visit relatives and think it will happily make friends with the relatives cat. They fought, of course. Like small tigers. Then they tried to get them apart, another huge mistake. 

Another time when I was older, my Dad brought a kitten home from where he worked and my Mom and I thought it would be a great idea to bathe it. A 9 ounce kitten can be very slippery and hard to hang onto. I don’t think we ever caught him to get him rinsed off. Dad found him a home. 

We were all really cat clueless. I had always ever been around cats you couldn’t pick up and hold and I was a little scared of them, though I loved them from afar. 

In 1987 after my husband died, I wanted a cat. I knew I wasn’t emotionally ready for a dog I had to walk and take outside to poop. I was in a black hole that tried to swallow me up and it almost did. My folks knew some lady that had some kittens, so we went out there and I peered down into a box filled with adorable white cats grey ear tips and sky blue eyes. I picked one of them up and he shot straight out of my hands. I chose another, and this one relaxed and purred against my face. I fell in love with him and named him Max. 

I took him home to my apartment and for months I wet his fur with my tears, as I wrote letters to my husband in Heaven. Max was my partner, but I still didn’t know as much as I should about cats. Irresponsibly I left him at my folks one night and the next morning I got a call from my Dad that he got out. My Maxie was hit by a car and killed. I let my best buddy down, and I blame no one but myself. 

I vowed that never again would I let that happen. 

When I met who would become my best friend in 1988, she had a huge gentle giant cat named Rocky. He was huge and had a face as big as a humans. He was the biggest cat I had ever seen, this sweet orange and white giant. He was a cuddler, and he never minded being picked up. When we decided to move in together I wanted Rocky to have a mate, a buddy. 

We went out to the same lady I got Max from and she had one kitten that reminded me of him. She charged more for him than the others because he looked to be part Abyssinian (a fancy breed that looks like a mini cougar) He had to be dragged out from under a barn and he was covered in fleas. We dusted the poor little guy with so much flea powder that when he shook, he looked like a little white cloud. 

He and Rocky became best buds and taught Buster everything he knew. We journeyed together many years, the four of us. Next time I will share a bit about Buster and the cat he was.

I hope you come along with me as I continue all of our stories, both cat and human.

Love and blessings in the midst of COVID……Lori