Hang with me if you're not a cat person. This isn't really about a cat.
We have three cats, although most visitors to our home assume there is only one.
Little Bit is Mr. Visibility, hopping easily between laps and misadventures. Bit has no yesterdays, every day dawns fresh. If it hurt like hell the last time he jumped from the second story bridge, it might not this time. If you leave a small object on a flat surface, he WILL hide it. It's all a game. Every day is a wonderment and you're welcome to join the adventure.
Sadie and Bess are the silent sisters, both quite equal in gentle, loving temperment until they were neutered and declawed.
Bess decided then that strangers could not be trusted. She disappears at the first hint of a guest and stays hidden until well after departure. In the safety of her family she is the ultimate lap cat,clinging and excessively "kneady." The cat books say the kneading action comes from a kitten's motion of comfort and feeding with its mother. Her paws are usually still moving when you finally can't take it any more and set her down.
The day Sadie came home from the vet she ceased to trust anyone. She startles easily and howls like a wounded animal if you try to pick her up. I took her back to the vet to make sure she wasn't in some type of continuing pain, but she checked out perfectly... and hid under the bed for days afterwards. Eventually she settled for shared solitude, sleeping in my bed at my feet... after I fell asleep.
Charlie and the girls would laugh hysterically at the howls and growls I'd provoke when I tried waking contact, but I noticed that whenever I came home, regardless of the hour or the amount of time away, Sadie would be waiting for me at the door.
After about a year she began waiting on the ledge of the nearby tub when I took a shower. When I stepped out of the shower, she would rub against me and allow me to pet her... as long as I didn't try to pick her up. Charlie dubbed her my "Shower Guard" and the ritual continued only at that place under those circumstances.
They are all indoor cats, but Sadie sits by the window for hours watching out, exhausting herself with ridiculously high jumps trying to reach tree frogs on the opposite side of the upper reaches of the door pane.
One evening Charlie and I were sitting on the porch when Sadie began to paw at the glass. She howled when I came in and picked her up, but sat quietly and tensely on my lap outside until she howled again and I took her back in. In time, the volume of the two howls decreased and the interval between them got longer. It is detente, the price paid for a few minutes of fresh air.
We arrived home in the wee hours of Monday from ten days on the West Coast. Sadie was, of course, waiting at the door. She took her place at my feet on the bed, but, still on PST, I got back up to work at the computer. I was typing furiously when I felt Bit or Bess rubbing around my ankles and pulled back a bit from the keyboard to make lap room for them while I worked.
I was so startled to see Sadie in my lap I almost dropped her. It was her first voluntary lap visit in more than five years and it lasted just a minute.
The next night when I settled in to sleep, Sadie positioned herself paralell to, but not touching, my torso. I had to turn down the television to confirm it, but sure enough, she was purring. She extended one paw to lay on my outstretched arm and fell asleep. She was still in that position when I woke several hours later.
The next morning I picked her up and she howled like a banshee. It's got to be on her terms. But I'll keep trying. Sadie and I are much the same.
I could never enjoy Little Bit's amnesiac bliss or be in any way comfortable with Bess' absolute "kneadiness."
But I can understand what it is to be on the other side of the glass. I know how hard it is to hold on the enough of the hurt to keep the meaning and how hard it is to let go of the rest.


Copyright 2004 Judi Griggs