Tommy and Cappie: A Tail of Two Kitties

Decades ago, my late wife and I went to an animal shelter to adopt a kitten and we found one very young orange tabby named Tommy. We were in the process of adopting him and had already paid our fee and they were double checking his health when they began to be concerned about him. Finally they determined that he had feline leukemia and that he was not going to live very long. We were given the option of picking out another cat to adopt or get a refund of our adoption fee. We couldn’t bring ourselves to choose another cat because we were shocked and heartbroken and hurt to lose Tommy so quickly. But we also decided that we were not going to get our adoption fee refunded and furthermore that we would formally adopt Tommy. So we filled out the paperwork and we adopted him even though we knew we couldn’t take him home with us. What we chose to do was add our last name onto his and buy a few toys that he could have with him for as long as he was going to live. We didn’t want him to die as a cat without a family. Even if he’d never know it or ever come home with us, we wanted him to be loved and to be part of a family. Little Tommy was our cat for a matter of weeks. We only got to meet him very briefly and we weren’t allowed to handle him, but for all the problems he had in his short life, he seemed like a happy little boy and we were overjoyed to watch him play with the toy that we bought him. And he played with joy and strength of spirit and you wouldn’t know that he was sick- that instead of years ahead of him, he actually only had days. Tommy lived a lot in the short time he was here, and we loved him as a part of our family. And then we said goodbye to Tommy, but we were forever changed.

Many years later, living in New Zealand, we moved into a community where a stray cat was living, playing in the bushes and getting fed by nearly everybody who lived in the neighborhood, but nobody would take it in. So my wife suggested bringing the cat in and I agreed, and we found out that she had in fact been literally thrown out of a moving car and upon taking her to the vet we also discovered that she was pregnant. A short time later Cappie gave birth to six kittens.

We subsequently discovered that Cappie was part Bengal. If you don’t know, Bengals are exotic pets who are very affectionate but they tend to really want more open space, preferably a garden, to conquer. They do get along with other pets and they love people, but they’re just a little more wild and sometimes more aggressive than their domestic cousins. Cappie showed a lot of this. But she found herself living in a series of very small apartments, and to add to this, had a touch of claustrophobia. Not debilitating, but enough that apartment living was not her best option. But Cappie also loved us and so she put up with it.

Not only did Cappie deal with this claustrophobia very well, but she found a way to have fun. I was watching her one day as she tried to burrow under a blanket on the bed. She found one end and grabbed hold of it with all four paws. Then she grabbed and scratched and attacked and played and pulled and wrestled and fought and then played some more. After a little while, she pretty much had her very own kitty blanket fort, and under she went. Cappie would have every excuse to dislike and mistrust people, but in fact loved them. She was always ready to meet and greet strangers at every opportunity. Cappie was an outdoor cat, stuck inside, in a small apartment most of her life. But Cappie adjusted. Cappie might have had reason to give up on life, but she found a way to enjoy herself. She found a way to play in a small, confined space with the family that she loved. She found a path through life for herself.

I learned a lot from Tommy and Cappie. They may have been the rescue pets, but they in turn rescued me. Tommy taught me that one small and brief life can make a difference. Every life is special. Every life is worth caring about. And every life deserves love and care and a family.

And Cappie showed me that we all have it in us to find a way to be happy in life, however briefly and simply, no matter the circumstances. Not necessarily to solve all of your problems or cure all the evils of the world, but to make your own sunshine if you can't find it anywhere else. We all have problems, and yes, most of them are worse than those Cappie faced. But if a cat who has been thrown away can still build a blanket fort, we can find an excuse to smile in the face of darkness.