Whispering Whiskers

“Peg! What did we miss last week?”

What did you miss last week?

Last week, if time hadn’t’ve gotten away from me, I would’ve shown you pictures of two plants that actually can grow quite tall. Teasel can get up to seven-feet high...

...and Chicory can grow over four-feet high. I had to laugh at these midgets. They’re both only a few inches, in the case of chicory, to a foot for the teasel, off the ground before they flowered. They learn! Plants learn! Flower fast or get mown over!

Last week, if I hadn’t’ve run out of steam, I might’ve shown you a picture of a flock of turkeys that came through our yard. They're listening because they heard the dogs bark.

Last week, if I would’ve wanted to start another page, I might’ve shown you the display of mums at a local grocery store.

Fall means mums, y’all!

I’m not sure I’m ready for it.

Don’t get me wrong. I like fall. I even like winter — and snow! I love snow! Spring is always welcome and summer seems a whole lot shorter now than when I was a kid.

I kinda feel like I’m sliding inexorably towards the grave and I’ll not take one single day for granted, not miss one single opportunity to tell you that I love you, that you’re in my heart, that you mean the world to me. I’ve stopped collecting things to leave behind and instead I’m making things, with my hands and eyes and heart, and sprinkling them around. When you see them, you’ll know I loved you.

“Peg! How morose!” you exclaim.

No. Realistic. If you don’t think about this stuff before you go, it’ll be too late after you’re gone. Besides, not thinking about it or not talking about it isn’t gonna stop it from happening. But I’m not depressed and I don’t dwell. I hope I get to live another hundred years but know this very day could be my last.

If I’d’ve started another page last week, I’d’ve shown you the first milkweed pod I saw that opened to release its wispy, parachuted seeds to the winds of fall.

But mostly last week I would’ve told you about Whiskers.

Whiskers is a true feral. I have no idea where he came from, but we’d see him around from time to time. With Mr. Mister our old dominate feral gone, I thought he’d move in. He didn’t. He’s still very wary and runs away when he sees me. A month or so ago, he was getting more brave. If I surprised him outside the cat room, he’d run as far as the weeds and stop.

Yep. That little gray speck in the middle of the photo is Whiskers.

I’d talk to him while Sugar purred and twined herself around my legs. I put the food out and go back inside. But I’d watch as he came in to eat.

Then Whiskers started staying, only retreating to the awning post six feet away and watching me. I moved slow, talked soothingly, and didn’t foist myself on him.

That’s what I would’ve told you last week.

This week, Whiskers was gone for two days. It was the first time in weeks he missed his morning and evening feedings. Funny how they can tell time. But since he is a true feral, never one of ours, I didn’t think too much about it.

“Maybe he’s out at Vernon’s,” my handsome husband Mike guessed.

Our neighbor told us he’d had a gray and white cat hanging around sometimes.

Friday evening, Whiskers was back and didn’t run from me. I walked out to feed Sugar and he was laying right there by the outside entrance into the cat room.

“Well, hello there handsome!” I gently cooed to him.

“Meow,” he answered barely above a whisper. Whispering Whiskers. I’ve noticed before that he had a very soft, quiet meow. Sometimes, if he’s over by the weed line, I can hear him only if I’m listening really hard.

I didn’t want to scare him, so I moved slow as I fed and stroked Sugar, kept up the patter the whole time.

Then I saw the flies. They lit on him and he didn’t seem to care. The death flies. The iridescent green flies that lay their eggs on dead things.

Uh-oh, I thought. He’s sick or hurt.

The true test came when I went back inside and watched. He didn’t go to the food bowl. After a few minutes I went back out. I didn’t want to get scratched or bit so I moved my hand slowly toward him, one finger extended. When he made no objection, I touched him and jerked my hand back fast — just in case he objected.

Whiskers just looked at me.

I touched him again, ran my finger down his fur, scratch his head, and when no objection was forthcoming, fully stroked his fur. He not only didn’t seem to mind, he started kneading with his paws. When I ran my hand down his back he actually rolled farther onto his side, presenting me with his belly.

This is probably the first time in his life he’s ever been touched — and he likes it! I thought.

I stayed and talked to him for a few minutes then went inside, shutting the door behind me. Then, thinking better of it, opened the door back up. Maybe Whiskers would come in for the night. A couple of hours later I went to check and he had come in. He was laying on an old quilt, just inside the doorway, that I stuff at the bottom of the door to keep winter out. I made sure there was water where he could get it and left him for the night.

The next morning was Saturday. My traditional letter blog writing day as well as traditional pancakes, bacon, and egg breakfast day. While we were waiting for the bacon to cook a little before Mike started his pancakes — he makes the best pancakes! — I made breakfast for the cats. Hot water over dry food, soak a few minutes, mix in a can of soft food. Going out to feed Whiskers and Sugar, I looked through the door before I went in. The blanket was empty. Then I see him. He’d just moved to a different spot. He was on a blanket on a low shelf. Sugar had gone out already.

“Good morning, big guy. How are you today?” I asked.

He answered with his barely audible, “Mew.”

I didn’t try to pet him.

It was still early and pretty chilly, so I didn’t open the outside door.

I washed the dishes and settled in to work on my blog.

By the early afternoon, it had warmed up.

“I’m going to open the cat room door and see if Whiskers wants to go out,” I told Mike.

In the cat room, I found him back on the quilt once again.

“Hey Whiskers,” I said and bent down to pet him. “It’s really nice out and the sun is shining. You wanna go outside and lay in the sun?” I asked.

His mouth opened like he had something to say but no sound came out.

“Okay, buddy. I’m going to open the door but I don’t want ya to be afraid.” The door can catch sometimes and I have to pull hard to get it open. But it didn’t scare him and he stayed where he was.

I went back in the house and you better believe I washed my hands with hot water and soap — twice! — after every encounter with him. I still didn’t know if he was sick or just hurt.

Later on I checked on Whiskers. I looked through the glass in the door to the cat room and watched as he left the blanket and made his wobbly way to the water bowl. I could see how really thin he was, gaunt, emaciated even. He was drinking, but I don’t believe he had eaten anything.

“I bet he hasn’t eaten in days,” I told Mike. “Maybe he’d been laying somewhere for a couple of days before he could get back here.”

When I next checked on Whiskars, he was going outside and it looked to me like his side was wet. I'm gonna guess he peed on the blanket he was laying on. Incontinence is not a good sign.

I opened the door and was across the cat room to the outside door in three strides. Whiskers had just stepped from the concrete patio to the grass and flopped down. He was right in front of the windbreak that Mike built to keep the winter winds from howling straight into the cat room. I sat down on it, right above Whiskers, and spent some time stroking his fur, talking to him and keeping the death flies at bay.

“I hope he’s dead before I go out again,” I told Mike. "It'd be kinder if you shot him."

"You shoot him," Mike said.

"I can't. Where there's life, there's hope."

It's late afternoon of this letter-blogging-with-no-blogging-getting-done day and I go to check on Whiskers. I see something on his leg, a piece of fuzz, I think and pick it off. It’s not. It’s fly eggs. Death fly eggs.

Two and half hours later, cookies cooling, dishes washed, it’s around six. I give up the evening news to check on Whiskers again.

It’s sad. The dying. Whiskers was dying. He was spread out on his side, his breaths ragged and other than breathing and swallowing occasionally, he wasn’t moving.

Death watch. I was on death watch for a feral cat that wouldn’t even let me touch him until a day ago. I knew it wouldn’t be long and I didn’t want him to be alone, to be afraid.

“You’ve been such a good kitty,” I tell him even though I don’t know if that’s true or not. “You’re really gonna like it in heaven.” Do cats go to heaven? The Bible speaks of horses, so why not our beloved pets? “Life will be so much easier for you. You won’t hurt anymore…” I pause to think of what to say next, but I don’t ever pause in stroking his fur. “… and you won’t ever be hungry again…” In my mind’s eye I see him running in fields of tall, cool, green grasses, chasing and batting at butterflies while the sun warms his fur. “Kat’ll be there,” I tell him thinking of my beautiful daughter, killed in a car accident seven years ago. “She loves animals. She’ll be waiting for you.” I see her standing there on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, holding her arms out for Whiskers to jump into. “Give her a hug for me, will ya?” I say.

Whiskers starts missing breaths and just about the time I think there won’t be another, he’d gasp and start breathing again. Then he starts to vomit. After several heaves that I thought would finish him off for sure, he pukes up worms. Those nasty, most vilest, revolting-est intestinal parasites-est. I guess the only thing that loves a parasite is another parasite.

I’m not sure what happened at this point. I can make a guess or two. All I know for sure is at a quarter to seven he never drew another breath. I reached between his front legs and felt for his heartbeat. It seemed like it kept beating for hours but it must’ve only been another minute or so. A very long minute or so.

And I cried. I cried for a cat I never got to know. I cried for a daughter gone too soon. I cried because sometimes it just feels good to cry.

I sniffed, wiped my eyes and nose on my sleeve (I didn’t have a tissue and that was better than letting it run all down my face), picked Whiskers up, carried him over to the weeds, (he won’t feel a thing) and tossed him in. Nature would take care of him from here on out.

“Isn’t that disrespectful?” you ask.

Not in my book. Heck, when I go, I don’t want to be burned up or pumped full of chemicals, sealed in a vault. I’d rather you put my body in the ground, like they do in the Avatar movie, plant a tree on top, and let nature take care of the rest.

Let's call this one done.