A Feline's Story

IMPURRFECT

In my eighth life my name was Nikki. I was a solid black, Siamese mix, domestic shorthair female cat with eyes that changed from brown to a shade of green that looked like two jade gemstones. I always knew that I was mixed with Siamese because I talked a lot. One of my masters played this game where she held her palm up and said ‘hi.’ I would meow back which made her think I said ‘hi’ back to her, and she would laugh so hard. Oh well, it made her happy and I learned early on that if I made my masters happy, I got a lot of love, delicious food, and sometimes, my favorite treat of all- catnip.

I had two masters. Before me, they had a cat named Zeus, who had been killed after he was hit by a car. They looked everywhere for another kitten to join their home, but during that time of year, even the shelters had a shortage. They finally found me among my brothers and sisters at a wonderful home several miles away. I was six weeks old. When they picked me up, I cuddled with them, walked around their necks and onto the top of their head and back into their arms again. It made them giggle and decide that I was the one.

I recall the long drive in the car on my way to my new home. I felt a motion that was new to me, and it made me nervous. I cried for my mommy. Where was she? I wanted to go back and nurse her warm teats and play with my sisters and brothers. My new masters gently petted my coat and talked to me in this funny voice that calmed me down and helped me relax.

Once I stepped into my new home, I was not nervous anymore; instead, I was very curious. It had all sorts of unfamiliar smells. I couldn’t smell my mommy, brothers, or sisters in this strange place, and it wasn’t long before I realized that I was there all by myself.

“I could get used to this,” I thought. And before too long, I did. These two women were obviously cat people who had just suffered a loss. They showered me with affection, gifts, and yummy food. My name should have been ‘Lucky’.                

It wasn’t long before I was allowed to go outside and step on the grass. It was summertime so the air was nice and warm. My masters kept a close eye on me so I wouldn’t run away. What they didn’t know was that I had no intention of going anywhere. Nor did they realize that the fresh air and soft grass were not new to me because I had lived several lives before.

Once I was a feral cat, completely exposed to the elements. I lived outside under low bushes in an apartment complex. There were a lot of us, who scavenged food from the garbage dumpsters at night and hid to avoid the animal police during the day. I had a lot of babies. Shortly after I gave birth to five or six kittens, I got pregnant again and had five or six more. It happened repeatedly. I loved having kittens. I took good care of them, but I had a gypsy’s soul, and I couldn’t stay in one place too long. It was normal for us to go our separate ways after a while and develop our own means of survival.

In another life, I had run away from my masters after they decided to get a puppy. I was expected to play, eat, and sleep alongside this animal whose instinct was to hurt me. When I wasn’t eating or using the litter box, I was always in one room of the house. After a while, I wouldn’t come inside the house anymore. They placed my food bowls outside, which was fine by me. I eventually ran off to an ocean town over eighty miles away. I loved the salty air that flowed over the rocky jetties. Before too long, my survival instincts kicked into gear, and I caught fish every day. Occasionally I spotted a bird, which although tougher to eat than fish offered variety in my diet. I was in heaven when I lived free near the bountiful ocean and fear of predators.

One day, my masters brought another cat into my home. He was a strange-looking character, with short legs and a strong, bulky torso. He reminded me of a dog. He was dark gray with white boots, collar, and belly but his face was white with a dark gray mask around the eyes. It made him look like the raccoons that I used to fight in competition for food in my other life. He had a black nose and it looked as if he wore black eyeliner around these large gold eyes and when he walked, he held his head up high.

We were about the same age, about 7 months old. I was not happy about this decision; after all, no one asked me how I felt about it. I immediately let him know that I ruled this household and if he respected that, we should get along fine. Which we did. We became the best of buddies. We cuddled, ate, and played together.

After a conversation with him one day, I learned that he was the only male in a litter of five. They were all placed in a cardboard box that sat outside of a grocery store. A lot of people came by and looked at him and his siblings. They picked him up, turned him over, and lifted his tail to see what sex he was. He didn’t like it and when he expressed his feelings, they placed him back in the box and chose one of his siblings.

 He told me that he was born with strong feelings of resentment that he carried on from his previous lives. He said that he used to be a dog; an admired and gallant bi-eyed gray and white Siberian Husky. He lived in a nice doghouse that was kept outside in a cold climate where he was happy with good, caring masters. He loved to chase cats. He said he often laughed at the way they made their bodies twice as big by puffing up their coats when he cornered them. He enjoyed their hissing sounds that came behind large fangs as they warned him to back off.

One day he chased an elderly alley cat for several miles until the cat collapsed and died. When he approached the cat and nudged him with his snout to get up, the cat used his last breath and bit down on his nose, scratched up his face, and punctured his eyes. He couldn’t see well enough to find his way home, wandered away, got lost, and later passed out from his injuries. When he awoke, he wasn’t himself. The cat he killed had placed a curse on him and turned him into a cat. Now he had nine lives to live like a cat and it pissed him off. He never wanted to be cuddled again. He attacked people with claws and teeth at the drop of a hat. He just went through the motions of living as a cat.

One night on the kitchen floor, I charmed him by batting my long fluffy lashes and before long we were expecting.

My master helped me with my delivery. I didn’t need her help, after all, I instinctively knew what to do, but I appreciated her compassion and care. She could tell when I was ready to push another kitten out and reached in to assist. I didn’t mind her help. I thought it was sweet, I felt loved.

Finally, after about eight hours, I had my last of 7 kittens. They were all so darn cute, even if I do say so myself and it felt good to know their daddy was only Brooklyn.

One warm evening, I heard them call me, but I couldn’t get up. I was on the side of the road in a daze and was unable to move my legs. The longer I laid there, the more strength I gained. As I gripped the grass with my nails to pull myself along, I realized I had no nails. They had been filed completely down from the cement on the street when I tried to stop myself from sliding under the car. That’s right. I had been hit by a car. I had been able to dodge them for so long, but today I was not so lucky. I could still taste the exhaust from the car’s tailpipe swirl around my face and into my fur. There was a loud dull thump as the car’s metal undercarriage rolled me around and bounced me back and forth between the two rubber tires. When this monstrous machine decided to spit me from its bowels, I slid in circles like a spinning top until I rested against the curb. The red brake lights glowed like fiery demonic eyes, as the humans inside brought the car to a stop once they suddenly realized that they had hit something. But just as quickly as it all happened, they left. They probably thought I was dead, after all, who could survive such a violent accident.

As I continued to lay there, I thought of the time I overheard one of my masters tell the story about a cat she had in the past that had not come home one night. She said her name was Kitty and she was all black with an auburn-colored streak of hair that grew down his back. She called her all through the night and into the morning, but she never returned, so she got out and searched for her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw what appeared to be black fur lying in the gutter on the side of the street. She didn’t see the face, because it was lying on its stomach, but noticed the auburn streak of fur on the back. There were no visible signs of blood or anything like that, so she called her name. She didn’t move. She touched the body with her foot and winced at how stiff it was. She went home completely devastated and called her roommate to say Kitty had been hit by a car and was dead on the side of the road.

Minutes later, she heard a familiar meow at her door. She thought she was dreaming when she saw Kitty walk through the door and into the kitchen to eat. She picked her up to inspect him for injuries. There were none. She just looked dusty, and her underbelly was wet.

She thought to herself, “could this be?”

She went out to the place where she saw the cat on the side of the road, and it was gone. She looked everywhere but it was no place to be found. When she returned home, she saw Kitty vigorously bathing herself. She bathed for two days straight. She believed Kitty had come back to another life.

But I was still alive, although my entire body ached terribly. I soon gained enough energy and strength to lift myself and hobble back home.          

My masters were so happy that I finally returned after dark. They didn’t notice anything different about me right away. We felines are not like canines. We don’t whimper and yelp when we are in pain. Instead, we tend to purr very loudly. Our purring is often misunderstood. Most humans think that when we purr, we are happy and feel good. But the truth of the matter is we purr mostly when we want something, such as to be petted or fed or need help.

I jumped on the bed, and I purred as they hugged and kissed me. They smelled the dirt and oil that was on my fur. It wasn’t long before they noticed the condition of my right foot. It was five times its normal size and twisted around in the opposite direction. After further inspection, they noticed a large gash that went from the top of my hip and around my right thigh. There was no blood, so they were surprised to see how deep it was. One of my masters cried hysterically, while the other, although just as devastated, maintained control and diligence. Within seconds a soft blanket was placed around my aching body, and I was carefully placed inside of a carrier and taken to an emergency veterinarian. The doctor gave me something to ease the pain and cleaned me up. She put temporary staples to hold my right leg in place and I was returned to my masters who were still crying in the waiting room. I was so happy to see them. I purred loudly in thanks for their help.

The vet told them that I showed tell-tell signs of being hit by a car. The fact that I no longer had fingernails was an indication of gripping the road; so was the oil she cleaned from my coat. She warned them to take me to our family vet as soon as possible to treat my leg, which they did the first thing the following morning.

I laid on the cold steel table as my vet examined me and gave us the bad news. The doctor could not save my right leg and to avoid infection and further suffering it was best to amputate it, after which I would be fine.

I stopped purring and didn’t purr again for a week. Is this how they were going to help me? To remove my leg. How was I supposed to live with three legs?

Two days later, I was lifted out of my carrier and placed on the carpet in our living room. Brooklyn and Moochie watched as I hopped across the room on my three legs. I just wanted to go to sleep. My masters gave me my pain medicine and allowed me my privacy in a dark, warm quiet bedroom, where I stayed for several days. I saw the worried look on their faces and heard the sadness in my masters’ voices as they gently coaxed me to eat and drink more. They had the agonizing job of providing wound care to the area of my stump. One of my masters had a weak stomach and could not handle it, so the one who helped bring my babies into the world. took command of the task. She was also the one who helped bring in all my babies into the world. I learned that she is the strong one who had no fears and who really could have spent her life as a vet. 

I remained enclosed in the darkness and safety in a small space under my master’s bed for several more days. They watched me when I emerged to go to the bathroom and waited to assist at the moment's notice. Their hearts were broken. They hoped that their decision to save me by forcing me to live as an amputee was the right one. They discovered that animals go through the same stages of loss, grief, and recovery as humans, but not in the same order.

After I got over the initial shock of not having four legs, I felt an overwhelming sense of numbness. Not physical numbness, but that of spirit or existence. Those feelings were replaced with anger. I was mad at the world and all that was in it. I was pissed at my masters, my granddaughter, Tinker, my daughter, Moochie and her father, Brooklyn. I wanted the excessive attention and sympathetic stares to stop.

Depression slowly crept its way in, and I wished they would have just let me die; just have the vet put me down. How was I expected to go on? I was always a lean female with a gorgeous black, shiny coat and vibrant clear eyes. I looked like a miniature black panther. I had always moved with grace and purpose, now I was hopping along like a rabbit.

The depression lasted a long time. I never thought I would live through it. While I lay there under the bed, I tried to make sense of it all. I thought of how the humans who had hit me with their car that night probably couldn’t see me; after all, my coat was as black as the night itself.

My masters continued to tell me how much they loved me. They told me how beautiful I was as they stroked my fur and tended to my stump. Within a few weeks, I went outside, sniffed the fresh air, and tasted the dirt as I chewed blades of the green grass. Occasionally, a soft breeze passed through my front paws and tickled the empty space where my back right leg used to be. Acceptance, though hard-pressed, had arrived.

My masters watched me with loving care and concern. Each day that I was let outside, I grew to accept that I was unique with my three legs. My masters called me their little tripod and soon, I was running faster than I did before my accident. I tested my ability and scaled the neighbor’s fence which impressed my masters. I discovered I could basically do the same things the others did but I chose not to. I was still nervous when I heard passing cars. I stayed close to home and never went towards the front yard near the street again. 

Ten years ago, two wonderful human beings picked me. Our lives entered a short chapter that was destined to be the journey like so many, that connected the love between humans and animals. They gave me a beautiful life.

THE END