BLOGWORDS – Friday 2 May 2025– SPECIAL EDITION – HAPPY BIRTHDAY KITTIES
BLOGWORDS – Friday 2 May 2025– SPECIAL EDITION – HAPPY BIRTHDAY KITTIES
SPECIAL EDITION – HAPPY BIRTHDAY KITTIES
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KITTIES
I can count on one hand the number of times in my life—66 years old, thank you very much—that I haven’t had a cat.
One of those times was in 2010 when the last of my kitties passed away. I learned a heartbreaking lesson that year—flea bath for dogs is NOT safe for cats. I buried my sweet Cocoa Latte next to her not-litter-mate brother, Chicago, who had died earlier that same year.
I was horrified at my fatal error and tossed all my kitty gear.
But then...
The following spring, a neighborhood kitty—we called her Phoebe—had a litter in the yard across the street. She moved her babies two or three times, ending up under the house next door to me. I left a dish of dry food on my front porch.
I don’t know about Phoebe or any of the other kittens, but one little black ball of fur ventured up onto my porch one day when I was sitting outside. She sniffed at me and licked my toes, and when I picked her up, we bonded instantly. I named her Shadow.
The following spring, 2012, Shadow had a litter of five babies. Now, I had made a birthing box for her. But she had become so attached to me that she chose to give birth right next to me. She had five babies, two all black little fellas, and three black and white babies.
Now I was living in a smallish house with a smallish yard, and clearly didn’t have space for six cats. From the beginning, my sweet Juniper chose me. Even when they were tiny and her sibling were tumbling around on the living room carpet, she would climb up on the couch where I was sitting and curl up on my shoulder. She still does this even now.
My daughter was still living with me at the time and she picked out Jasper. The other three, Felix, Jake, and Penelope, were to be adopted. Only Felix found a new forever home. Now I wish I had kept him after all.
Once they were all a bit bigger and were able to climb out the door, I had to keep them all inside. In 2018, Shadow decided she wanted to go back outside. The others stayed inside.
In 2019, we found Shadow in the road. She is buried next to her predecessors in the back yard.
To this day I don’t know what happened to my sweet Penelope, but I found her under my bed one evening in 2020.
Jakey was always skinnier than Jasper, but in 2021 he was getting even smaller. By the end of 2022, he was barely five pounds. I believe he had cancer, and he died in February of 2023.
So now I’ve just the two old fogeys, Juniper and Jasper. Jasper limps and I suspect he has arthritis in his hips. Juniper, on the other hand, still tears around the house like she was a young little thing. Did I mention he’s a beast? And she’s a petite little thing? He loves to curl up next to me while I’m reading, and “pet” me. Junie curls up next to me most nights to sleep with me.
And now they’re older than me. At least according to feline age conversion charts. Jasper is really starting to show his age, sluggish and sleeping more than usual.
So Happy Birthday, my sweet kitty babies.
Comments
Post a Comment