HENRY

HENRY

As we speak, our cat, Henry, is sitting on my desk. He is a black and white “tuxedo” kitty, and even though we will celebrate his tenth birthday this year, he still has the air of a kitten; playful, mischievous, and affectionate.

We were extremely lucky with Henry. He was the last of a litter of kittens born to a barn cat in Tennessee. I had gone to visit a friend, and she was acting as foster mother until he could be adopted out. Renee insisted that I take a look at him. We already had two cats, so I knew this would be a “tough sell” to my husband. I almost didn’t want to look at him, because I knew I would fall in love, and then I would have to bring him home. So Renee led me into the laundry room, and there at the foot of the washer was this tiny little thing, no more than six weeks old, and no more than six inches from the tip of his nose to the tip of his tail. When he saw me he rolled over exposing his tiny white tummy and mewing loudly. I picked him up and he immediately began to purr so loudly that he filled the laundry room. Renee laughed, “No muffler!” As I held Henry for the first time, he purred and mewed alternately, walking all over me as if I were nothing more and nothing less than a big mountain he had to climb. As predicted, I fell in love immediately.

I called Art and said, “I want to ask you something and I want you to think about it before you answer, okay?” Knowing something was up, Art gave me a laconic, “Okay”. I told him about the tiny kitty, and he had but one question: “What’s his name?” When he heard “Henry”, he said, “Well, that’s alright, then. Bring him home.” I was so relieved and happy. (It must have been a sign – “Henry” is Art’s middle name).

It was a long way back from Renee’s house to ours. I had driven over with my friend Betty Blair, and she offered to drive back so that I could hold Henry. All the way home Henry mewed and purred and climbed all over me and piddled on me about ten times. Betty Blair was aghast, but she laughed with me when I said, “That’s why God invented washing machines!”

Well, Art’s reaction to Henry was exactly the same as mine. It was love at first sight. I knew I’d married him for a reason.

Our other two (much older) cats – Natasha and Charlie – were less than amused. As soon as they got wind of Henry, they began hissing and arching and puffing up to show how ferocious they were. We had to keep Henry in the powder room for the first week or so that he was with us so that our other cats wouldn’t kill him.

Gradually we brought him out into the rest of the house and we supervised visits with Charlie and Natasha. As time went on, the older cats resigned themselves that this little guy was here to stay. Charlie tended to ignore Henry, but Natasha gradually came to believe that she was his mother. She began to groom Henry at every chance, carefully licking every part of his little body, fairly clucking her tongue whenever she caught a glimpse of a hair out of place. I think she interceded for Henry with Charlie, acting as a distraction so that Charlie would chase her instead of the little one.

At this writing, Charlie and Natasha have crossed over the rainbow bridge, and Henry is our only remaining cat child. He stopped piddling on me as soon as he discovered the kitty litter, and he stopped sharpening his claws on the furniture as soon as we got a couple of scratching posts. But he loves to climb up on my desk while I’m working. He thinks that he should be the focus of our attention at all times. He sleeps on our bed most nights, and he will present himself at three o’clock in the morning demanding to be groomed and petted and generally fussed over. I don’t mind a bit.

Henry is one of those rare phenomena in life. You can’t help but smile when you look at him. Even if it is three o’clock in the morning and he calls you out of a sound sleep to rub his tummy. Even if he has just stood on your computer keyboard and caused you to lose half an hour’s worth of work. Even if he leaps on the table you’ve just set for breakfast and lands on your plate. Even when he has miscalculated a jump, causing a plant to topple over, and leaves a pound of dirt on your freshly mopped floor. For some reason that I can’t fully explain, all you can do is laugh. And I always get the feeling that Henry is laughing right along with us.

Thank you, Renee. What a precious gift you gave us!

© 2005, Robin Munson

A LITTLE BIT OF SOUL

A LITTLE BIT OF SOUL

This morning while we were having breakfast, our cat, Henry, started running in and out of the kitchen like a maniac. He darted outside through the kitty door, stayed out there for about twenty seconds, then darted back into the kitchen and raced all the way to the far end of the bedroom. He did this several times. I don’t know what he was reacting to, but clearly, it was something we couldn’t see.

We’ve noticed this and lots of other inexplicable behavior in our cats over the years. Our sweet little Siamese, Natasha, (who recently went “over the rainbow bridge”) would wake up in the middle of the night howling. For those of you who have never experienced the Siamese Howl, it is chilling, mournful, ghost-like, and utterly unforgettable – especially when it wakes you up at three o’clock in the morning. I would call her over to us and she would scramble into bed like a frightened child. I would stroke her and comfort her until she fell into a deep sleep.

Natasha was otherworldly, anyway. She, more than any of the cats I’ve ever known, seemed to be in touch with spirits. I would walk into the living room and find her standing with her nose two inches from a blank wall. She would be intently staring at something I could not see. She could go on like that for quite a long time. It used to puzzle us no end.

Another thing about Natasha – We used to call her “Nurse Natty”. She was extremely aware of our moods and our physical aches and pains. When either one of us was feeling blue or was “under the weather”, Natty would appear out of nowhere. She would actually sit on us and purr for as long as we could allow. I’ll bet if you tested our blood pressure before and after one of Natty’s treatments, you would see it go way down. She always made us feel better, no matter what was going on.

Then there was Charlie. Charlie was alert to invisible predators. He would awaken from a sound sleep and jump about two feet into the air, then scramble off to another room. It was dramatic with Charlie because of his extremely long legs. I used to say that he was the Air Jordan of Cats.

It’s not only cats. My mom’s little dog, Mugsy, is prone to barking at odd times of the day and night as if there were a stranger at the door. Well, Mom looks up and down the sidewalk outside, but there is no one, nothing, no sound, no shadow. At least, nothing that is detectable to us.

I believe that out animal companions are tuned in to other dimensions. Maybe it’s their extraordinary sense of smell or their acute hearing. But more than that, I just think they have been endowed with the ability to perceive what we can not. I know, I know. Just too weird. But if you have ever lived with a four-footed companion, you probably have witnessed what I have witnessed.

And then you hear pronouncements, as I have, that “animals have no souls”, and so forth. Well, in the first place, we are animals, so I guess that statement is intended to mean either that we have no souls or, more likely, that non-human animals have no souls. It’s just not logical. If humans have souls, why not other species?

The problem is one of communication. Our four-footed companions can not speak our language, and therefore, there is no way for us to know what they think or feel. Of course, some might argue that it is we who can not speak their language. As sure as I’m sitting here, our cat Henry knows exactly what we are saying to him. (Although he may choose to ignore us). And he’s better at reading our moods than most humans. He’s way better at understanding us than we are at understanding him.

My best guess is that our beloved Natty came to “visit” Henry this morning, and the two of them were running around chasing each other, as they had for many years.

© 2004, Robin Munson

NATASHA

You may not want to hear from me today. My head is muddled. I have so much on my mind that there is almost too much to write.

Yesterday morning we lost our dear, sweet little Natasha. Our angel girl kitty. For anyone who has ever been through it, no words are necessary to describe our grief. For those of you who have not, no words are sufficient.

I miss her every time I look at our bed. Our bed was Natasha’s domain. She spent every possible moment holding court there. Sleeping there. Dreaming there. Cuddling with us. Banishing her little brother, Henry. When I was sick or discouraged, she was “Nurse Natty”. She would just appear and come to wherever I was. She would sit on me and purr endlessly until either she or I had to get up. She had magical healing powers when she did that. Natasha was regally beautiful. She commanded respect. She had her own kind of intelligence. She could be very funny. When Art came in to the bedroom, she would flirt with him, rubbing up against him, nuzzling him. Then she would flop down on the bed. Art would say, “Come on, Natty. Show us what the girls in Hollywood do!”. And Natty, on cue, would roll over on her back, paws splayed, showing off her perfect white tummy for all the world to see. God, we would laugh so hard. And I think she was laughing with us.

Many times I dreamt that Natasha could speak English. I would dream that she was standing at our back door, yowling to go out. I would hear, “Meow! Meow! Meow!”, and I would stand there, helpless. Wondering why she was crying. And she would say, “MEOW! MEOW! ME! OUT!!! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you speak English?”. I am convinced that she understood every word we said. Of course, we struggled for the most rudimentary understanding of her feline language. I’m sure it was a constant source of amusement to her. Stupid humans.

For fourteen wonderful years, Natasha graced our home. She enriched our lives. She was our friend, our child, our guardian angel, our baby girl. I hope with all my heart that she is, not only finally cured of that nasty cancer, not only out of pain, but triumphant, soaring, blissful, at peace. Finally, our delicate little one is in perfect health. I envision her in a place where every iota of her beauty, her generosity of spirit, her sweetness, her grace, is reflected back through a Benevolent Being. I would like her to be in a world where she has access to unlimited catnip, beautiful birds that she can chase down who magically resurrect themselves for the next chase, endless warm summer sun baths. Perhaps she is playing with Charlie, our partly feral grey and white kitty with whom Natasha was raised. (They were polar opposites in personality, but they loved each other). I see her surrounded by her littermates and her Cat Mother/Father. I see her in fields of sweet fragrant flowers that tickle her nose, and a protective mantle of love that enfolds her and protects her for eternity.

And Art and I will join her there some day. We will all be happily reunited. And finally, we will all speak the same language.

SAYING GOODBYE

It is our last day in Connecticut. Tomorrow it’s back to Los Angeles after a three-week sojourn in New England.

Goodbyes are so hard, and even harder in autumn. Autumn is the time of year when we say goodbye to summer, to warm weather, to ice cream, to green, to bare feet, to skimpy outfits, to drive-in movies, to suntans and convertibles and all that they imply. We say goodbye to so much, and now we have to say goodbye to autumn itself, since we are going back to Los Angeles where autumn is mostly a non-event. After all, the palm trees stay green, the weather stays warm, and some fools even go swimming in the ocean in December! So, not much changes in Los Angeles.

I am especially sad right now because we have just learned that our darling baby kitty, Natasha, is a very sick girl. She has always been a delicate flower. She was a foundling who showed up in our carport one very rainy morning the day after Christmas. She was obviously of Siamese ancestry, with something softer mixed in. She had piercing blue eyes and a commanding voice that said, “What are you waiting for? Take me home!”. But underneath the regal bearing was a vulnerability that was even more compelling. We dutifully tried to find her owner, hoping that we wouldn’t. No one claimed her, and from that day forward, we felt that she had been sent to us straight from God. We have had Natty with us for almost fourteen years. There have been many illnesses to contend with. She has had asthma, infections, “Bird fever” and often what the vet referred to as “NQR” – “Not Quite Right”. But she was always taking care of us. We have often called her “Nurse Natty”, because when one of us is feeling under the weather, she will simply sit on us, purr, and within seconds we feel better. Natasha has always been an angel. I guess she is being called home.

When we left Los Angeles, we had just taken her to the vet. She appeared to be in pretty good shape, considering her age, with some suspicion of problems with her thyroid, a common ailment for aging cats. We thought that when we got home she would be seated on the living room sofa pretending to ignore us, as she usually does when we are guilty of abandoning her for a week or two. We had left both the kitties in very capable hands. We have the best pet sitter in the world – a woman who appears to be a cross between Mother Theresa and a women’s basketball coach. Very practical, no nonsense, and totally caring. She called me a couple of days ago, concerned that Natty was losing weight and acting lethargic. I knew she would never have called for something even remotely frivolous, so I asked her to take her to the vet in my absence, which she graciously did. My heart sank, even before I had called Dr. Basilius.

But when he called me to say that Natasha had a mass in her abdomen – that had not been there at all two weeks ago – my heart sank further. I was seized with guilt for having left her for too long, but then realized that, although our absence may have been the proverbial last straw, her illness must have been waiting in the wings for any excuse to rear its ugly head.

The doctor will do all he can to make our girl comfortable, at least until we can be there Friday morning. He says we can take her home, at least, for a little while – for which I am grateful. So long as she is not in pain or suffering, I would like to have some time with her. I would like to bring her home. I would like to have her cuddle up with us in bed again.

When we flew to the East Coast three weeks ago, we were on a “mission of love”, coming here to help Art’s parents move out of their beautiful old house and into a more comfortable and practical smaller home. We were coming to help and be of moral support to Art’s brother who was facing a difficult medical challenge. We were coming to buy a small home of our own here in Connecticut so that we could spend more time with Art’s family.

Now we are flying back to the West Coast. This time our mission is to spend whatever time remains with our beloved Natasha, to comfort our poor “orphaned” cat, Henry, who has been alone for the past few days in the house, save for Mary, his sitter. To reconnect with our family in Los Angeles, whom we have missed terribly and who have missed us.

There is so much melancholy in all of this, and yet. How sad it would be to fly back and forth, without connections, without the tug on your heartstrings saying, “Stay – Don’t go!” “Come here! We need you!”. So it is with very full hearts that we bid adieu to our home in Connecticut and travel back to our home in California. We are very grateful. We are surrounded by love.