Hermes, Mona, & Ginger

It's been a year since my parents passed away to COVID this week. They came to live with me about 10 years ago and moved into the apartment that overlooks my garage. It worked for everyone. They had their space and I had mine. It was perfect for them. They could come and go as they pleased and I could keep a watchful eye on them. It was rent-free and I made sure they had everything they wanted. It was the right thing to do. They go sick towards the end of June last year. Mom passed first followed by Dad exactly five days later. Both had just turned 81 years old a couple of months earlier. Now they were gone and I could never bring myself to go upstairs and pack up their belongings. So for almost a year, their stuff sat just like it did on the day the ambulance whisked them both off to the hospital.

I came home late the other night and noticed a light on in the upstairs apartment. Strange I had never noticed that light on before but then I had never been home this late in a long time. For all I know the light was on a timer or had been on all along. Not taking any chances, I grabbed a baseball bat and crept upstairs as quietly as I could. That's kind of hard to do considering my size (I'm a full-grown Texan) and considering the stairs weren't prone to quiet creeping. They squeaked every time you shifted your weight. I made it to the top of the landing and noticed the door to the apartment was slightly ajar and thought again maybe someone was inside or maybe I had left the door open like that. There were no signs of forced entry and it was entirely possible I hadn't closed and locked the door that day. I did have a lot going on. Now I know all of you are thinking, don't go in there alone. Call the police. Phone a friend. Go get a gun. Like I said, I wasn't afraid. I was more bothered that someone might have tried to riffle through my parents' belongings.

I pushed the door open as wide as it would go and saw nothing. The room was just like they left it. The light that was on, was Dad's bedside lamp and it was on a timer. Why didn't I ever notice that before? His eyeglasses and his Bible were laying right where he left them and a TV tray was standing beside his bed covered in the parts of something he had broken down and was trying to reassemble. Dad was a tinkerer and liked to take things apart to figure out how they worked, then put them back together. The apartment consisted of 2 bedrooms, a bath, a kitchenette, and a living room. As I walked from room to room, I realized it was like a time capsule into my parent's life. When I stepped into Mom's room, I'm pretty sure I still smelled the faint odor of her perfume. I was on the verge of a mental breakdown when I heard them. They were faint at first. If I had been talking aloud, I wouldn't have heard them. I stopped and there it was again. A kitten or should I say, kittens!

I dropped to my hands and knees and looked under Mom's bed. Peeking back out at me were 3 baby kittens. From the looks of them, I figured they were close to 10 or 11 weeks old. I looked around for their mother and couldn't find her so I figured she must have been off foraging for food for them. I decided to leave them where they were and I left the apartment and went to my kitchen where I retrieved some tuna and some dry kibble. I've never been a cat person. I've always been a dog person. I don't have anything against cats, it's just to me dogs are more fun. I can bond with a dog. I can take a dog on walks. I took the food back upstairs and Momma Cat still hadn't returned so I left the kibble and tuna for the kittens and I left. I returned and repeated the process for the next couple of days and never saw the Momma Cat so I decided to bring the kittens downstairs with me. I grabbed a box and after several chases, I succeeded in getting all 3 into the box and downstairs. I walked through the apartment and decided I would wait until fall to sort through Mom and Dad's stuff. Until then, I made sure there was no way anyone or any animal could get inside again.

Once downstairs, the first order of business was a trip to the vet so off we went. That's when I realized I had to name them. Don't ask me why I chose Hermes, Momo, and Ginger. I just did. Now they were named, the vet did her part, and weighed/vaccinated them, and got them started on a diet. I was officially a cat daddy. It's been 4 months and my home now has an obligatory automated litterbox in each of the bathrooms, several cat scratch trees placed strategically throughout the house, and the kittens have laid claim to the house as their own. It's been fun watching them grow up. Technically they are still babies and I have yet to get them fixed but they aren't so tiny anymore. They aren't tripping over their own paws when they run and they don't get scared whenever they hear a new sound. Even my long-time pet beagle, who I've had almost 14 years has bonded with them.

The days are getting shorter and the temperatures are cooler so I know it's getting time to address the apartment. I don't fear it as much as I once did. I wouldn't say I'm looking forward to it, but I am ready to put everything away that needs saving, breathe new life into things that can still be used, and pass along those things others may benefit from.