[unstresst]

"Feral_Cat_News Moderator" <Feral_Cat_News-owner@yahoogroups.com> writes:



The time of cat dancing
Before long you begin to waltz and spin to each
other's rhythms
STEVE STOECKEL
Special to the Observer

This is how the dance begins: You're starting
life over, living in a
small apartment not in the best neighborhood.
Life is hard for many
people around you in this place that you're
hoping is only temporary.

One day, coming home from work, you're greeted by
a cat -- a huge orange
tomcat of a tabby -- who bounds from under the
bush by your back steps,
meows precisely once, and does a figure-eight
walk around your ankles.
He doesn't follow you to the door, but merely
sits and stares from the
sidewalk.

Day two: home from work. Cat bounds from bush,
receives pat on head,
then leaves.

Day three: You spy the cat under the bush as you
pull in. "There's our cat,"
you say to your wife, a bit sarcastically, as he
runs up to greet you.
"Yeah, right," she says, knowing the last thing
the tiny apartment needs is
this large orange thing. You laugh and go inside,
leaving the orange thing
again sitting happily on the sidewalk.

Many cats roam outside the apartments, and some
are ill cared-for or
feral. Quite a few eat out of the communal
dumpsters, which reek of rotting
meat and unimaginable bacterial life forms. You
notice the orange cat
leaving the closest dumpster on a regular basis.

Treats and shelter

It's around day 14 that you and the wife buy a
pack of cat treats for The
Cat. He accepts the treats, but gets a bit
frantic when invited inside,
which you take as a good sign. You're just good
friends. The Cat leaves, and
you get a bit concerned when he doesn't show up
for several days.You forget
what day it is when The Cat is allowed inside for
the night (so you won't
worry so much), but must sleep in the kitchen,
then later can sleep in
the living room (but is not allowed on the
furniture). Afterward comes the
trip to the vet, who informs us that The Cat is
FIV positive, exhibiting
the feline version of the AIDS virus.

"Before you do the good Samaritan thing," she
says, "you need to know he
may live for years or just months. Now's the time
to back out if you want
to."

You and the wife look at each other, each seeing
the answer. You promise to
give The Cat a comfortable life, no matter how
short.

No need for a purpose

You eventually move to a nice, small brick house.
The Cat, by now not
only allowed on all the furniture but also
sleeping with you and the wife,
makes the journey and settles in to the good
life, claiming the living room
bay window for bird watching and everywhere else
for sleeping, which he is
quite good at. He has apparently never taken cat
lessons, and, far from
being aloof, wants to spend all waking moments as
close to humans as
possible.

By now you are doing the full cat dance, waltzing
and spinning to each
other's daily rhythms: the gentle paw tap on your
nose at 6 a.m., reminding
you it's time to get up and get the cat food; the
lap-sitting while you read
the morning paper; the small head looking
patiently up at the back door
window when you get home from work; the brief
pretend battle between The Cat
and The Hand Monster before going to sleep each
night.

"Cats," someone once said, "are nature's way of
reminding us that not
everything in life has a purpose." You don't
consider that a complaint. Life
is packed with purpose, along with accomplishment
and complexity and stress
and a thousand other things that need offsetting.
What, therefore, could be
more exquisitely comforting than sharing space
with a creature that can find
joy in the tablespoon of milk left in your cereal
bowl or in knocking a
pencil off your table for 10 minutes straight?

One last dance

After several years of good health, The Cat
becomes suddenly very ill. Within
a week, his immune system crashes to the point
where he can't eat or even
walk, so one awful morning you say your goodbyes
and make the final trip to
the vet. There, wrapped in the wife's much-loved
fuzzy jacket, he is gently
put to sleep as you pet him one last time and
watch the light in his big
orange eyes go out.

You take the empty jacket home and begin storing
food bowls, the litter box,
and other reminders of this tiny living thing
that spent more time in your
house than you did. Weeks later, you're still
finding clues he was here:
orange fur behind the couch, or paw prints on the
headboard of your
bed.

And this is how the dance ends: You write it all
down, remembering how The
Cat would always nose his way under your left arm
as you typed,
sometimes contributing a keystroke or two, and
how this used to irritate
you. Now, feeling a ghost cat moving gently under
your arm as you type this,
you would give anything to have him there again,
and you would not be
irritated, not at all.

Steve

Stoeckel
Observer community columnist Steve Stoeckel is a
professional musician
and electronics technician. Write him c/o The
Observer, P.O. Box
30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308.