Catalyst

My earliest memories of having cats goes back to my childhood home in southern Newfoundland during the 1980’s. We had a dusty grey cat named Smokey. Her long and usually slender body still slinks around the recesses of my mind, mixed in with all the memories of growing up in a small out-port community.

I was only five years old when Smokey was with us. She lived most of her life outside, coming and going as the people came and went throughout the day.

One day I was playing in an old out of service red van which was parked on blocks near the side of my parent’s house. From the driver’s seat of the van, I could see buttercups bobbing up and down in the gentle summer breeze. I was pretending to haul a load of lumber like my granddad did to some small town down the coast, Hermitage or Harbour Breton. The van hadn’t moved in a while, the grass beneath it had not turned quite as vibrant as the taller blades of grassed which seemed to be eating the house at the foundation.

Smokey clumsily climbed into the van through the side door that I had left open. She looked fatter than I normally took her to be. It was clearly hard work for her to climb onto the torn leather passenger seat. I took note of her for a second and quickly turned back to my pretend world, continuing my journey through the towns in my imagination, following some pretend road that I had thought up.

Smokey let out a sound that I had never heard before – my blood curdled. She seemed demonic. If I had been driving, I probably would have crashed. I leaned as far back from the possessed animal as I could and watched in terror as she continued her crying. Her eyes were like yellow glossy marbles. Was she in pain I wondered? Was she dying?

A tiny wet blob appeared.

It moved.

It was wet, grey and moving.

More tiny blobs appeared. All wet. One orange.

Six wet blobs in all.

My young brain connected whatever dots I could and realised that I was seeing kittens appear before my eyes. I didn’t quite understand the mechanics of what happened, and the whole ordeal seemed like agony for the poor old cat. Nonetheless, I ran in elation, to tell whomever I came across first.

Inside the house, I relayed the news to my parents and the other adults who were sitting around the kitchen table having a few drinks. My siblings overheard from the living room and total commotion ensued as everyone got excited about the news. Dad and my uncle went outside to verify what I had told them.

I never saw the kittens again. Dad never explained what happened, just that they were just something else for us to take care of.

Smokey died a few years later. She was really old. My brother and I buried her by the path leading to the well, just past a thick patch of alder trees. Dad found her when he was digging up the ground to plant some carrots. I remember him running down over the hill in rubber boots, trying not to vomit from having encountered the remains of the old beloved cat.

The next time you buries a cat, tell me where you puts it. He was furious, but more grossed out than anything.

We never got another cat.

30 years later, in April of 2020 when I found myself crying in a parked car in a vet parking lot, five minutes after my cat died, I thought back to Smokey and was amazed how strong my bond with Sophie had been. Sophie was a cat I had adopted from a friend who was not able to commit to the kind of care she needed. My spouse and I already had two, Pumpkin and Zoe, when Sophie came to live with us. Those two had also belonged to a friend. He moved to Thailand and didn’t want to bring the pets so far. We added a fourth cat named Mini to the family a few years later, she was found wandering the wet streets of Halifax before coming to live with us.

By the beginning of 2020 Pumpkin and Zoe were close to 18 years old and both had been having issues, going to the vet a lot. They were ageing as gracefully as we could let them and we were all content and happy together. So, when Sophie got cancer and died suddenly at 10 years old, we were shocked and the grief was too much to take. It was a surprise that she was even sick.

The world pandemic was only a few weeks old and the extra isolation that we had been feeling seemed to trap the grief like a storm, off shore, but close enough to create unending currents of sadness, or ripples of pain to lap at the shores of my comfort. I was surprised by how sad I could get over a cat considering my family’s history with cats.

A couple of months after, in the middle of a very hot and pandemic restricting August, Mini also died.

Before Halloween night, which would have been pumpkins 19th birthday he passed away as well. My spouse and I were left with our old girl Zoe, affectionately known as Granny. We spoiled her as much as we could, overcompensating in a way because we had four cats worth of love and grief to carry and Zoe was the fortunate recipient of the extra love we had for showering on a pet. She had not been much of an outdoor cat, but we started taking her out during the afternoons to let her play in the grass, or just lay in the sun as it poured over the asphalt driveway.

A couple days into November I saw an ad for a little black and white kitten named Dottie (Dorothy) who needed a forever home, she was a feral rescue from Digby NS and I fell in love with her at first sight. I was worried that it was too soon to adopt a new cat, but I felt empty and felt it was too soon to be without my cats. After a few days of applications and reference checks we drove out of the city to adopt Dottie. She was so shy. She hid under the couch for the first couple of hours.

Zoe was not overly interested in or impressed by Dottie at first, but eventually after the second night the two of them got closer, and Zoe even let Dottie snuggle a couple of times.

Three days later Zoe passed away. Age and illness won. A part of me likes to think that Zoe held on until we got a new kitten or until she knew we wouldn’t be as sad. I was so happy that she got to spend so much time outside in the last weeks of her life and that she had known the joy of seeing a kitten running around the house playing.

I often joked that my cats were therapy animals before that was even a thing. Pumpkin heard all my secrets; Zoe listened every time I poured my heart out to her. Dottie turned out to be just what I needed, 9 or so months into a pandemic, after being isolated and cut off from everyone I love. I was feeling depressed and emotionally drained, some days unable even unwilling to brush my teeth or even change my underwear. This little kitten was so timid and had a look on her face that I couldn’t decipher at first. Then one day I realised that she was trying to figure out if she could feel safe and loved around me. The little kitten wanted security and to feel at home.

Dottie wanted me to love her. She demanded that I play. She demanded to be fed. She demanded to be cleaned if she was soiled.

One morning as I was making a sloppy adjustment to the blankets hanging off my bed, Dottie jumped onto the bed and ran under the comforter as I lifted it, almost like she was playing with one of those giant parachutes from gym class. She rolled around under the blankets wanting me to play hide and seek or something similar. After we were done, I realised the bed got made in the process. It felt good.

The next day, and every day since Dottie has helped me make up the bed. That little kitten has been like a catalyst for the self-care that I needed in order to make it through what remains of the pandemic. I needed to learn to care for myself in the same way I felt compelled to take care of that helpless little kitten.

Dottie and I have become the best of friends over time. It turns out, when we took Dottie for her check-up and to be spayed, the vet informed us that Dottie was in fact a boy. After a few minutes of laughter, we decided that the most fitting name for Pumpkin’s little brother was Gourd.

To be honest, I think they rescued me.