“…love knows not its
own depth
until the hour of
separation.”
– Kahil Gibran
“ It’s been 2 days
now, so it’s getting better. What a hole
in the heart Miss Kitty Cat left with me.”
“Miss Kitty…” would be ‘Booger Cat’
‘Booger Cat’ – a hell of a name for a cat. One of those names for which there is no
explanation…one of those names that comes quickly…one only those who feel the
love, intimacy and character of the animal, can understand.
I didn’t know her well, but a primal urge led to a “…love
the one you’re with…” promiscuity with some long forgotten ‘tom cat’ that, by
now, a decade and a half later has brought great pleasure to my life. Little did she know, in 1998, when she gave
birth to a litter of kittens under a trailer at the church where I spent nearly
three decades of life, that she would survive and influence so many.
“Watching (on a daily
basis) a creature you love die is the pits…”
Survive that young mother did and so did her litter. She pretty quickly discovered scavenging food
was simply a matter of capturing Lizzie’s heart…which she accomplished, by the
way, in short order, AND it wasn’t much longer before her litter captured other
hearts and found homes with several of the church folk.
While she (Booger) was white with black markings, some of
her offspring were calico, one of which was a tiny…whiny female who wasted no
time burrowing into our lives. We called
her Leah, because as we often have told people she was ‘lucky’ to be in our
home.
Leah, in the scriptures was the older sister of Rachel, with
whom Jacob had fallen in love and worked seven years to marry. As it turns out, Jacob thought he had married
Rachel, only to find out their father had substituted Leah. Yes indeed, Leah was lucky to get a husband
and Leah the cat was lucky to be with us.
‘Lucky Leah,’ yeah that’s the story we tell. Truth be told, however, we are the lucky
ones…we have been recipients of the gift of her presence…with little doubt, we
have been blessed. Leah…our Leah has
brought us unspeakable comfort in the 15 years she has wandered the rooms of
our home.
“Last summer, BC
[Booger] developed a sore on the lower eyelid of one eye…the vet diagnosed skin
cancer…I mean she’s covered with hair…how does she get skin cancer?”
Lizzie, known to her family, as Betsy, an Iowa farm girl who
made her way to Moberly, Missouri and for more than three decades has brought a
deep and rich friendship to our lives.
Yes sir, Lizzie/Betsy, and Leah, the little creature Booger
cat brought to life under that trailer situated on an acre of land, on a
country Road, winding its way across North Central Missouri, beginning
somewhere west of Hannibal and after passing Moberly, wiggling a little as it
makes its way to Kansas City, continue to resonate with my life to this very day.
In April she wrote...
In April she wrote...
“So today is not the day ... but someday
it will be the day that I will have to say goodbye to this sweet kitty cat who
captured my heart on first sight and insisted I take care of her (and she of
me).”
I have often wondered how animals process things when they
are confronted with mortal situations.
What do they know? What do they
comprehend? Do they just live their
lives and then find themselves feeling terrible or simply unable to
survive? What is the thread of
consciousness, if indeed there is one, that lets them know? Robert Lanza writes in his book Biocentrism:
“A cat, even when mortally ill,
keeps those wide calm eyes focused on the ever changing kaleidoscope of the
here-and-now. There is no thought of
death, and hence no fear of it.”
The day came this past Thursday, as Ms. Booger cat’s life
had become so untenable that my dear friend Lizzie made that most difficult of
decisions and as she wrote to me, “so I decided…I would watch her die and love
her while it happened...”
And so she did…
“ It’s been 2 days
now, so it’s getting better. What a hole
in the heart Miss Kitty Cat left with me.”
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